Design Process

Our goal for the tinkerCAD part of the project was to create a device that could capture Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. The design we chose was a hollow tube with 2 fans on each side blowing the same direction. Outside of the fans were mesh filters, one which would only allow particles the size of Carbon Dioxide or bigger to fit through, and the other which would only allow particles smaller than Carbon Dioxide to fit through. This makes sure that only particles the size of Carbon Dioxide or smaller can get into the tube on one side, and the particles that are smaller are pushed out the other end.

For the RockSim Software, we first explored a couple of pre-designed rockets and their simulations. We took inspiration from the tutorials shown on the Apogee Components page as suggested by the TAs. We decided to use a three-stage rocket with three engines. This rocket reaches a height between 8300 to 8400 ft. Our rocket launched successfully on RockSim!

For the research paper, we did some research on how rockets work, how carbon dioxide is captured and how we can use captured carbon dioxide to produce synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. We decided on 4 main sections: introduction to rockets & the process of capturing and processing carbon dioxide, what rockets are and their design process, the design process for capturing CO2 and the production of hydrocarbon fuels. We divided the topics equally between us to work more efficiently. At last, we added our references and did some last minute changes to the paper to submit it.