Estes Alpha Rocket, Rocksim, and Egg Drop Competition

Changes to Workflow: When creating this rocket, I made a very similar rocket, but there were some slight changes I made to the design. To start, for the nose cone, instead of having the shock chord connect to a screw and then later having the screw go into the nose cone, we had nose cones that had screws built into them, which made connecting the shock chord a little easier. Also, instead of using a hole punch to create holes in the parachute, I used a pencil because it was available to me, and the holes that needed to be made were very small, so a pencil worked as a good substitute here. Also when having to use a piece of paper folded into three pieces to connect the shock chord to the rocket, my piece of paper got stuck in the rocket, so I had to use a small piece of paper and improvise to make it similar to the piece of paper in the instructions, but it ended up working just as well and held the shock chord to the rocket. Also, my fin dimensions may be slightly off, because we had to print out the fins on the instructions, and they did not fit as perfectly as the video showed, but it was very close to the same dimensions, and I made the fins fit along the piece of cardboard, so that was only a minor change or possibility of change. Also, when putting the burn paper in the rocket, the instructions suggest 2 pieces of paper, but my class increased that to three pieces because one test rocket's parachute caught a little on fire, so in order to prevent the rest of our rockets or parachutes from catching on fire, we put three pieces of burn paper instead of two. Also, my shock chord length was slightly longer than the video suggested because the pdf did not suggest a length, but that did not effect my rocket or how it launched. Also, we did not include an engine lock on our rocket because we did not have that material available to us. Finally, instead of using a sponge to wet our gummed paper, we just used a wet paper towel, but this achieved the same thing, to get the paper wet. All of these changes were slight changes and did not effect the launching of my rocket, and it was overall very similar to the rocket on the video and pdf.

Materials:

• plastic tube (serves as a base to build the rocket)
• paper (will be wrapped around the plastic tube to ultimately be the base of the rocket)
• gummed paper (will add support to the outside of the regular paper)
• water and sponge or paper towel (to wet the gummed paper, so it will stick to the regular paper)
• nose cone (with screw included on it)
• rubber band (not circular, but a string, this serves as the shock chord)
• parachute
• scissors (in order to cut parts of parachute, string, and parts of the instructions like the fin outline and paper for the shock chord and to cut access paper)
• cardboard for fins (I created 3 fins)
• small cardboard tube for the side of the rocket (called the launch lug, it is what the rocket uses to launch off of)
• engine tube (a cardboard tube, wider and brown)
• 2 spacer rings ( put on the engine tube, so the engine cannot move much or burn the rocket or go up the rocket)
• a8 engine (smaller engine, good for this type of rocket)
• battery and alligator clips with wires and long stick with launch pad (this is the device used to launch the rocket)
• wood glue
• 14 pieces of shroud line (pieces of stronger stings and they attach to the parachute to the nose cone)
• burn paper (it is tissue that prevents burning of the rocket)
• ruler (to make lines and measurements precise and straight)
• pencil or hole puncher (to make holes in parachute)
• rectangular pieces of cardboard (to make fins)
• sharpie (to make lines for measurements)
• spacing tracer (on instructions on pdf, to make fins evenly spaced around the rocket)
• piece of paper folded into three sections (on instructions on pdf, used to put shock cord inside the rocket)
• stopper (keeps two legged strip close to engine)
• two legged strip used to launch the rocket (allows rocket to be launched when connected to launching device)

Building Rocket Images:

Creating the tube:

Side tube added to rocket:

Creating the fins:

Creating the Parachute and Shock Chord:

Rocket Inside and Rocket with engine:

Final Rocket:

The Launch:

Before we could set up to launch the rocket, we placed a devices that would measure how high our rocket went in the air inside the rocket, by rubber banding it to the screw on the nose cone, so it would not go somewhere crazy when launched. When launching the rocket, we put the small tube that was on the side of the rocket though a long metal stick that was connected to a flat piece plastic, that would be used a the launch pad, or where the rocket was set up to be launched, on the flat surface. The stick and launch pad are on top of three pvc pipes and all of the launching place is set of the ground, which is a level surface, so it will go up and not our or diagonally when launched. Then, we connected the two leg strip that is with the engine, to two alligator clips that are not connected to anything on the other side to begin, because once the alligator clips on the other sides, not connected to the rocket, the rocket will launch. It is very important that the alligator clips do not touch on either side of the alligator clips because if they touch, the rocket will not launch. Then, when the area is cleared and we were ready to launch, you touch the sides of the alligator clips that are not connected to the rocket, to opposite pegs or sides of a large battery, and the rocket launched straight up and high. When it came down, the parachute came out, but came out very late and so the rocket came down hard to the ground; this is probably due to the fact that the parachute, although folded, was shoved and very compact in the small space inside of my rocket, so it was probably hard to get out because the little space it was shoved into. The stopper and engine came out away from the rocket, and the burnt paper was burnt and there was only slight burning on the engine tube, but no major burning to my rocket. It was a successful launch and went 121 ft in the air, in 6 seconds.

Making Simulation:

When making the simulation for this, I had to start with the estes alpha rocket and modify it from there. I made sure to rename it to Zoe Alpha rocket. Then, I put the a8 engine in my rocket, with a 3 second delay time. I then went to edit the components of my rocket. I began with the body tube. I measured the actual measurements of my body tube, which was 10.6 in long. Then I had to create custom fins because none of the fins were similar to mine in direction or shape. My fins were 2.25 in by 2.5 in by 2.75 in by .5in, and I had to keep messing around with which dimension went with what side, and I had to keep messing with the angles of the lines, to make it look as similar to the rocket I made in real life. I then added a nose cone, which I gave the length of 1.1265in, a diameter of .9in, a base length of 1.1575in, and a wall thickness of 0.077in, and made sure it was labeled as hollow, just like the nose cone on my actual rocket. I then had to put the mass of my rocket in, so I measured the mass of my engine and the mass of my rocket on a scale. Under sustainer mass I put that it was 53.4g and my second booster was 15.4g, I believe the second booster is the measurement of the engine. I saved my rocket. I then did a simulation, and one thing I defiantly needed to add was a parachute, which effected my results, and also my fins were off slightly compared to my real life ones, no matter how many times I tried to adjust the fins, which could have effected my flight simulation results, which is why it could have been off then the actual height I got, but I will keep improving my skills and Rocksim to make this a more accurate simulation, and I believe the simulation will be a helpful tool when I work on projects in the future.

The Egg Drop Competition:

Our class was able to test different ways to make a rocket, using either the same design of the estes alpha rocket or a similar alternation to this rocket, and we must try to launch our rocket to where it goes around 60ft in the air and come down so the egg does not break.

My Design:

I decided to create the exact same rocket as the estes alpha rocket because I decided that I could attach my design to hold the egg on the outside, so it would not burn up on the inside like the burn paper did in and the parachutes inside our rockets. Also, since the rocket needed to go a certain height requirement I decided to use a light material to protect the egg, in a light container so it would not add a lot of weight to the rocket and it would still protect the egg. I placed a lot of cotton balls inside of a little mesh jewelry bag, and I would place the egg inside all of the cotton balls to protect it on all sides. I soon realized that even though the cotton balls were there to protect the egg and the bag and all of the cotton balls were light, it might not be a hard enough structure or container to protect the egg if it was falling 60ft in the air. I thought of a pill bottle to place the cotton balls and egg in, but that would be too heavy and might break the egg because the container is very hard. Then I thought of placing the little jewelry bag with cotton balls in it in a bag full of air. The jewelry bag would not touch any of the sides of the bag because the air and would just "float", in a way, in the bag. This way if the rocket came down very fast and hard on the side with my bag, then the egg would have a double layer of protection with the air and cotton balls. My main goal was to make sure the egg did not break. I then taped my bag to the side of my rocket to attach it, and did not think it would weigh enough to have an effect on the flight of the rocket.

Changes to Rocket Making: Besides taping a bag with a jewelry bag, cotton balls, and an egg inside of it to the side of my rocket, I made some slight changes to making the estes alpha rocket. One change I made was, on the engine block, I added a metal hook like thing to the outside of my engine block. The metal hook like thing, was a little long on one side, but this was for when the actual engine was placed in the engine block, it could fit and rest exactly on the bottom of the metal hook like thing. When launching the rocket, this prevents the engine to come out of the rocket. I also added 4 pieces of burn paper to the inside of the rocket instead of 3, so that the parachute had a better chance of not burning up. I also placed the parachute closer to the top of the rocket, closer to the nose cone, in order to hopefully help the parachute get out of my rocket faster and easier. I also had to add the screw to the nose cone instead of it already being in the nose cone, but it results in the same nose cone. These were not major changes to the rocket, but just little changes to hopefully improve my rocket.

The Launch:

When launching my rocket, I made sure that my bag was as full of air as it could be, in order to keep my jewelry bag "floating" or not touching the sides of the bag, and the egg safe. When I first tried to launch my rocket the ignitor was not working when I connected the alligator clips to the end pieces of it and then touched the other sides of the alligator clips to a battery. I then had to go get another ignitor, and try to relaunch my rocket. I used an a8 engine, which is the same we used last time we launched our estes alpha rockets. When I launched my rocket, my rocket did not go very high and started spinning downwards, and in the end had a lot of smoke coming out of it, but I believe that is due to the engine staying in the rocket due to the metal hook thing. The burn paper was very burnt inside my rocket. My rocket went 13ft in the air, which was very far from the requirement, but the egg did land safety. I think the problems with this design could have been having the egg on the outside of my rocket, which could have caused my rocket to go to one side versus the other and caused it to spin downward in the end; I could have probably added a counter weight to the bag to prevent this, but I thought the bag was light enough to not have to do this. Also, the weight of my bag could have also effected how high the rocket went because even though it appeared light, the rocket was only made of paper and gum paper, which is also light. I thought my design would go higher than it did with how light my design was, but I do know some ideas of how to improve my design if we ever do this project again. The important part is that my egg did not break, though.

*After we launched this rocket, we planned to use Rocksim in order to simulate how high our rocket was projected to go. My rocket was 76g. We will simulate our launch in a class very soon.