Rocket Project
Sara Myers, Sari Saidi, Bryce Walker
12-14-2021
Table of contents:
Outline
Executive Summary
Supplies
Aluminum
Cardboard Body
Caulk
3D print
Engine
Parachute
Foam Padding
Gorilla Glue
Outline:
Intro
Our Design
Problem Formulation
Problem Solving
Solution Implementation
Final launch Summary
Executive Summary:
Why- We wanted to have a challenging yet fun project that we could complete within the timeframe
What- Our rocket was required to launch and return an egg safely to the ground
How- We designed our rocket to utilize a recovery charge built into the engine to separate our nose cone from the body of the rocket. A parachute was used to slow the descent of the nose cone which housed our egg.
Results- Our launch was a successful and returned our egg safely. Our parachute had a minor malfunction but other then that, everything went according to plan
Introduction:
Our rocket was made for Astronomy night at Mesa Community College
We had to make many important design choices such as our nose cone shape, our engine type, and the shape and material of our fins Through careful consideration, we believe that we selected the best designs for our rocket We built our rocket and tested it twice making necessary modifications after each test For our final presentation, we launched our rocket in the parking lot with a goal of landing our egg within this parking lot as well By setting our rocket in a position considering wind and distance from the street (which we tried to avoid at all costs) we hoped achieve our goals The launch ended up being a success despite malfunctions in the parachute!
Design Description:
Main Body- We decided on a paper body body to reduce weight.
Fins- We decided on a clipped delta shape for our fins made out of steel.
Nose cone- We decided on a aerodynamic nose cone shape which was 3D printed.
Egg protection/housing- The egg was stored in the nose cone which was stuffed with foam to act as protection. Tape was used to cover the opening.
Egg recovery- We used an engine recovery charge to separate the nose cone from the body and used a strong 30 inch nylon parachute to give the nose cone a slow descent.
Engine and mount- We had to use a powerful F15 engine to carry the heavy weight of our rocket. We mounted the engine using a superglued in 3D printed engine mount.
Design Discussion:
After voting on a few ideas, we came to a decision to build a model rocket for astronomy night
Initially, we had a much more complex design in mind. We wanted to incorporate electronics to manually disconnect an egg housing from the main body of the rocket We also had ideas to use an altimeter or a speedometer to try to tell when to release the egg housing. We even considered 3D printing the whole rocket body which would’ve been way too heavy
Summary:
We had to design our fin shape and ended up going with a small clipped delta shape due to the heavy weight of our nose cone.
We decided on a powerful F15 engine because of the heavy weight of our rocket. We decided on a special foam to protect our egg due to its effectiveness in tests. We decided on a large parachute due to the weight of our nose cone. We later decided against making a screw-on cap for our egg housing. Instead we simply taped the opening closed to allow for an easier to make design.
After we made all these decisions, the only thing left to do was test.
Our first test launch was a partial success, our rocket launched high but the parachute ripped and the engine mount fell out. Due to the parachute rip the egg ripped so modification was needed. We got a better parachute and glued the engine mount in more securely in order to fix these problems. We did a second test launch with these modifications and it was a success. It did veer off to the side heavily but the egg survived To fix this we were more careful about attaching our engine.
Back Matter:
I used this website to order rocket parts and look at other rocket models.
The procedure of how to actually build the rocket
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/how-to-build-a-rocke...
How to position center of mass and center of pressure as well as schematics
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/cp.html
Materials research
Mechanics:
