Rocketober 4 - Rocketry Education Photos

All this month I'm posting photos on Twitter for #Rocketober. They'll appear here with slightly expanded text.

"Day 4: TARC or educational rocketry photo"

Yesterday's #Rocketober theme was educational rocketry photos. Since I've taught Rocket Camp two years running, I have a lot of these. (For those waiting, I know I haven't finished the Rocket Camp blog series yet. It will happen.)

Painting the Apogee Avion. This booth was really helpful. It kept harmful paint fumes away from the kids, and sucked up overspray. Also, we didn't have to worry about getting bugs stuck on the paint.

This is what Go Fever looks like.

Whoosh!

A couple of my students from last summer returned this year. Here, one of my returning students launches her Apogee Avion. These were great rockets.

We tracked the altitude with an Estes Altitrak. This is the baseline we used. It moved a little as kids walked across it. That's fine - it was just an exercise.

An experiment - comparing the findings of an Estes Altitrak tracker with a barometric altimeter on board the rocket. The Estes Reflector lifts off, carrying the Jolly Logic Altimeter 2.

Checking the altimeter readings to compare with the Altitrak.

I wish I had video of this launch. This kid's reaction was amazing. "It worked! It worked!" he yelled. "My rocket really worked!"

Painted and ready...

From last year - putting the Crossfire ISX on the launch pad.

Using the Altitrak to find the elevation angle for calculating altitude.

Hooking up alligator clips on the Baby Bertha. This was the best built rocket all season, and had a great flight.

I felt it was important to show the kids how to set up for launch and have them do it themselves, rather than have me do it for them. They folded parachutes, put in wadding, installed igniters and igniter plugs, and they hooked up the launch controller clips - which can be fiddly work, but must be done.

The intrepid Claire launches her Hi Flier.

After her flight, Claire carefully notes the elevation angle from the Altitrak station. She took altitude notes all launch day.

Showing off Trident - a 3-motor cluster rocket. The kids really liked this one.

I also did some building yesterday, but that was a ton of tweets in a short time, so I stopped there.

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Rocketober 3, 2016

All this month I'm posting photos on Twitter for #Rocketober. They'll appear here with slightly expanded text.

I recorded a new episode of The Rocketry Show podcast last night, so this post is on yesterday's tweets.

"Day 2: Rocket t-shirt"

 I don't have any rocketry t-shirts (though I should), but for yesterday's theme, I posted this. I bought this NASA shirt to wear while teaching Rocket Camp, and wore it to my first club launch. That's me with Trident, a scratch build of mine before its last flight.

All fin slots have been cut, and here is Sky Wolf dry fitted together. Note that nothing is glued in place yet (except for the aft centering ring, which I did on Day 1).

Sky Wolf is small, but powerful. Only about BT-60-sized, it has a thicker airframe, and can hold 29mm motors. It can fly fast and high on composites, and can take anything from D to H impulse!

A notch cut out of the forward centering ring. The Kevlar shock chord will pass through this and be anchored to the motor tube.

A knot tied in the shock chord 3 inches from the end.

The knot serves to help anchor the shock chord, acting as a stop to prevent it from slipping through the notch in the centering ring.

The spiral grooves in the body tube were shallow but wide. They filled easily with my minimal-sanding method.

The stressful moment of getting the forward centering ring glued exactly in the right spot - not stuck too far forward or aft - is done.

Finally, the end of the shock chord gets dipped in epoxy, laid onto the motor tube, and wrapped in black electrical tape to cure. Once the epoxy is cured, the tape will come off.

There was too much chance for a mess at this point, so I didn't photograph the epoxy process. I needed to get it on there and wrapped up before it ran anywhere. You'll see it when I take the tape off.

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Photos for Rocketober 2

Click here for an explanation of this Rocketober stuff.

Sunset Launch

Day 2's official theme for the Apogee Components #Rocketober photo blitz is "The earliest photo you can find of yourself doing rocketry."

The earliest photos of me in rocketry aren't that old. I just started this a couple of summers ago. This isn't the very first one taken of me, but it's close, and it's my favorite.

Once that was up, I posted more build photos of the Sky Wolf.

The SkyPyrates Sky Wolf is about BT-60 sized in diameter. The tube is actually a heavy-walled 38mm tube used here as an airframe, but also used in HPR rockets as a motor tube, so BT-60 nose cones wouldn't fit on it. The walls are thicker, so the inside diameter is much smaller than a BT-60 model rocket tube.

But the Estes Tube Cutting Guide will fit around the outside, and it's good not only for cutting, but for drawing circumferential lines around a tube. Here I'm using it to mark lines around the airframe, which will mark the forward and aft ends of the slots I'll need to cut for the fins, which are of through-the-wall (TTW) construction.

Note the circumferential lines around the tube. Also note that instead of a single fin line, there
are two, 1/8 inch apart. That is how wide I needed to cut the slots to accommodate the fins.

The first set of slots are cut. They may not look perfectly neat, but I can widen or clean them up if need be. Most likely, though, they'll be just fine. I used a piece of aluminum angle on the body tube as a straightedge and cutting guide when I got the slots started, so I know they're straight.

I used a hobby knife. It took a little time. This tube is pretty thick. If you have a Dremel tool, this would go much more quickly. But don't feel like you need one to cut your own fin slots, even in thicker tubes.

The motor mount laid next to the body tube. The aft centering ring (right) is glued on, and will end up flush with the aft end of the airframe. The forward centering ring is where I think it needs to be, and I've marked that spot with a pencil line right up against the ring. Next, I'll dry fit the motor mount and fins, to see if everything fits just right.

Looks about perfect. The aft centering ring butts right up against the aft fin, and the forward centering ring is tight against the forward fin. Next is to cut all the other fin slots and re-check the dry fit on each side. Then I can attach the Kevlar shock chord to the motor mount, glue the forward centering ring on, glue the whole motor mount into the rocket, and glue in the fins.

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Sky Wolf Sim

I've created a simulation of the Sky Wolf in OpenRocket, and it looks pretty close.

I'll need to print out fin templates and compare them to the real thing to be sure, but after tinkering with it for a few hours, I think I have a close enough sim.

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#Rocketober Tweets for Today

Time to pick a build for #Rocketober. I have so many Estes rockets
I'm going with something else. Here's my non-Estes build pile.

I've been posting a ton of photos to Twitter for #Rocketober. Here's what I've done so far today.

From the selection pile - the Apogee Components Avion.
I've built 4 of these and have one to paint, so I'll save this one.

Quest Astra, a leftover kit from rocket camp. Will build another time.

The Quest Magnum Sport Loader. I bought after my 1st had some minor flight damage.

Definitely out of production - the Red River Rocketry Blue Shift!
I think I got the last one in the world a couple years ago.

A limited edition, designed by Crazy Jim of SkyPyrates - the Sky Wolf. This is a National Sport Launch 2015 commemorative rocket. Small but powerful with a 29mm motor mount, it can fly on anything from D to H motors.

The FlisKits Tres - a three-motor cluster rocket. I bought this from Jim Flis at
a launch after chatting with him about airbrushes.

The Quest SuperBird - a low and slow rocket. I think this one is out of production as well.

This is a big one - the Mad Cow Rocketry Aerobee 150A. It's a scale model of a sounding rocket, and has a 38mm mount.

I'll also soon finish a scratch-built copy of the Estes Hi Flier XL with a payload section.
I'm building the original Estes kit at the same time.

Decided on the Sky Wolf

Checking the parts. That's a 12-foot Kevlar shock chord.

The Sky Wolf comes with some nice vinyl decals.

I'll measure and weigh all the parts to build a simulation in OpenRocket. Here, I'm measuring the nose cone.

It's an 8-inch long (spherically-blunted) tangent ogive.

The nose cone is hefty, and has some nose weight added to the tip. I had to find the real CG for the simulation.

The NC alone weighs 91.4 grams.

Careful notes on the sizes, masses and placement of all the parts will help me make an accurate sim.

The aft centering ring is glued on. The instructions say to use epoxy, but wood glue will work fine for
this rocket. It's also less messy and lighter in weight than epoxy, so I don't have to mix anything.

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