Sketches

Here are a few sketches that I finally found time to scan:

Progress Report

So I've gotten some work done making the rocket launch pad and the ignition system. They can be seen here:




So the first image is of the piezoelectric ignition system. I ripped apart a grill lighter, stole the little piezo and modified the casing (and colored it like a coral snake!). Now it makes a spark between the two copper wires coming out the top.



The second is of the rocket launch pad... similar to the wings one I sketched up before.

This is a wings model of the rocket launcher that I'm planning on constructing for my hydrogen rocket. The brown pieces are wooden and leave a gap for the rocket fins which are larger here than they will be in reality. The rocket itself sits in the wooden rocket 'cradle' which will be tilted toward the sky on some sort of stand.



This one is my design for adding the gas to the rocket. The rocket will begin full of water, and then the gas will come in through the pipe with all the bends. The water inside of the rocket will leave through the other short pipe with the narrow end. The thing in the middle is the piezoelectric sparker which will ignite the rocket. All three things will go through a rubber stopper so that the water doesn't pour out the bottom of the rocket when it is resting on the launch pad.

Re-Entering the Atmosphere

Well ok, it's the atmosphere of rocketry. In any case, I've been drawing up some plans for a hydrogen powered rocket. Hydrogen and oxygen gas are obtained through the electrolysis of water. The process is sped up considerably by the addition of electrolytes.

There has been a new breakthrough in rocket construction! I plan on using fluorescent light bulb protectors as rocket bodies. They are very lightweight, transparent, and fairly durable ... although they have yet to be put to the test.

Gas is going to be generated with a DC battery and piped into the rocket to displace water. Once the water is out of the rocket it will be ignited with a piezo and fly (hopefully) into the air!

More soon!

New Nozzle Designs

Yesterday Myles, Ethan, and I made three more batches of fuel. The first one we put some old fuel in, but it turned brown from the caramel and didn't turn out well. The second batch we packed in some motors and succeeded in getting our rocket off the ground, but only a little ways. With the last batch, we made a motor and put it in the rocket car. This was very cool as it shot forward a few meters and then the motor exploded out of the car and rolled around on the tennis court. Ethan had the video camera, so there should have been video as well as pictures, but something came up when uploading to the computer and they were all deleted. However, we do have the pictures (also from Ethan!):

The first batch.
The first batch again...
The result of the entire first batch burning...
The second batch (a good one!)
A Packed Engine

A Bit of a Scare

Today Myles and I mixed up some more fuel with his hotplate. The hotplate evaporated it so fast that it caramelized and turned a dark brown color. We loaded it into the new rocket tubes with the washers in them and set up the rocket. It hissed up into the air about 5 meters then with an explosion it dropped back down. What had happened is the small washer blew off and the large bore wasn't enough thrust.

Myles also created a mortar by rolling up some fuel and loading it into a longer piece of conduit. This was very cool looking, and so was his scrap bomb, or rather, lots of the little crumbly leftovers wadded up into a piece of tinfoil. This one sent flaming balls in every direction, very cool.

The last engine we lit off had the small washer epoxied to the inside of the larger washer. The larger one was pounded into the tube with a hammer, and the surrounding metal from the tube flared out from the pounding to grip the washer. Just before this, we had lit the second of the duct tape two washer engines, which did an extremely rapid double flip in the air and landed on the ground when the small washer blew out. I was a little scared of this new one because if it had the power to rip ten layers of duct tape, it might have enough built up power to blow up, or something equally as bad. We rammed the motor into the ground and hid ourselves behind an old door. We didn't even look, we could tell what happened by the sound. The engine burned, and then blew the whole larger washer out of the tube. When we went to look, the engine was buried almost 5cm further down into the dirt. Maybe next time I'll make a better rocket to test on since the current rocket has suffered some major damage.

The Damaged Rocket

New Construction

My dad has supplied me with a map tube as a body, and my teacher from school also let me have a tube. I used the one from school to create this rocket. The fins are made from college mail duct taped together so they are pretty flimsy but not as flimsy as the first ones. I'm not sure they are rigid enough, however. This rocket has yet to receive an engine mount. (I'm considering a larger diameter)

On a different note, I have put together three new engine casings with two washers as a nozzle. The first larger washer was pounded into the end of the casing (I was lucky enough to find some that were just a tad bigger than the mouth of the conduit) and the second smaller one was taped over it. The result is a nozzle with a smaller hole which should make more thrust.

They can be seen here, and here.