Introduction
We built rockets to study airodynamics, these rockets are small minimalistic designs that work well if the student doesn’t make them complex. I learned that aerodynamics is crucial to rockets’ flight patterns and stability.
Nose Cone & Fins
The designing process for my nose cone and fins was straightforward, the cone consisted of a hollow tube rounded into a point. this cone worked well for what I needed it for and didn’t crack or break during launch. My fin design was literally a rounded triangle, it was effortless in theory but in onshape it was difficult. Onshape didn’t like the idea of having a triangle with two rounded edges meeting each other at a point and kept giving me issues. this was eventually resolved (I don’t remember exactly how). These fins worked very well at keeping the nose pointed straight up and keeping it from tilting and losing control.
Building Phase
The building process was simple. We started with attaching the engine mount to the inside of the tube, then attaching the fins to the outside of where the engine mount is with a template to hold them during gluing. After the fins were glued i started assemebling my nose cone assebly and attached the streamer to the inside of the nose and the nose to the inside of the tube. The only issue i had with the building process was that during the gluing of my fins they snapped off multiple times due to being glued to template mount.
Center Of Gravity & Center Of Pressure
N/A
Flight
Conclusion
This project was very enjoyable and it was quite fun being able to return to BHS and launch the rockets, this is not the first time ive build these kind of rockets so i have some prior expirence. I only really had two big issues with this project, my fins originally didnt want to stay glued to the body and when launching the nose assembly decided it no longer wanted to be attached to the body of the craft and caused the body to bend when it hit the ground with no dampening.