Week 4 - RC Plane and Rockets

We made a prototype of a rocket using paper and index cards. Our fins were relatively basic, but it worked pretty well.

Our launch had a nice arc and went pretty high up for a paper rocket.

The Prototype

The prototype airplane was built and worked decently well. However, it was a bit too heavy in the front, which caused the plane to dip after being thrown.

We tried our best to use IQmol to experiment with different compounds and elements. There was a lot of struggle in getting the software working and figuring out how to do different things.

Copy of In-Class Day 1

A simple worksheet with screenshots of molecules. The 3rd column is empty because our molecules were already optimized. We weren't really able to figure out what the energy meant and how to find it.

RocketSim

Through RocketSim, we made several simulations of different robots and their trajectories. Here is the simulated view of one of them.

The Air Quality Sensor

We quickly built and programmed the Arduino, and it easily passed the test trials.

We managed to get successful readings on our Arduino, which took a while. We had another faulty Arduino and spent a lot of time troubleshooting on the software end before eventually replacing it with a new board that worked immediately.

Our Arduino was able to successfully measure VOC levels, but we struggled to try to find a way to convert this into CO2.

Building

We built our airplane and rocket in USC's MakerSpace. They were a lot of fun to build; we followed some instructions but changed some up because we thought we could optimize it better.

(Left)

Cutting out various parts for the airplane.

The rocket body + cap along with a string to slow stuff on the left.

(Right)

Tracing airplane parts.

The circuit between a switch, battery, and motor for the fan that would move the plane.

There was a lot of soldering, and some of us burned ourselves!

After all the circuit wires were soldiered, we got the batteries working and the motors spinning.

Here is the completed plane with the motor running.

We noticed after some tests that our plane was really front-heavy. Our design was then changed to move the battery pack a little bit back closer to the center to balance out weight more.

Our (pretty much) finished rocket!

Our plane broke A LOT during test flights. We ended up needing to use tape to keep everything held together (since they literally detached)

A motor completely snapping in half and breaking after a test flight.

Troubleshooting

There were a lot of wiring/motor issues for the airplane, not because we did it badly, but just because everything kept either falling apart or breaking.

There were many times when wires just straight up broke by themselves or detached from the motor and capacitor.

We had to resolder parts numerous times.

TESTING

Our rocket actually launched really nicely. It went straight up pretty high, and we're proud of the trajectory performed.

Our plane did not do nearly as well. Many times it would just go straight down and there was not as much of a glide as we expected. We were able to try several throws before the motor/foam attachment fell off completely.

Regardless, we still had some fun with the broken plane.

Week 4 Paper

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