Advice Needed for school project

[lowerstoford]

Launch Day!

I'm not allowed to go and watch, so I am waiting for an update from my Son.

Not feeling that confident as wind is much stronger than the test night and I have found out the teacher organising it, has done this 5 times before and his form ARE in the competition.

We did a few tests with tube fins on top and a delta wing, but the bare bottle still went further.

Test videos will be added soon and I hope that they will be allowed to film the event, if so I will try and put this up to.

Launch time is around 1:00pm GMT

All I can do is wait..............

[Water Rocket Expert]

Why aren't you allowed to go and watch? That sounds a bit messed up. Maybe they don't want adults on school grounds with the kids. The way things have been going in the country lately, I don't blame them.

[lowerstoford]

Hi All

I thought I had posted on Friday, but obviously not...

The Launch was cancelled due to weather.

Which gave us a bit of time to research and develop the "rocket"

v2.0 sports angled tube fins, new adjustable nosecone mass system, bottom weights.

This was test flown a few times, and I left it up to my son and his class to decide on what nosecone mass to use on launch day. (I did give recommendations though)

Launch day was yesterday, They decided NOT to listen to my recommendations on nosecone mass and went too light.

Due to this, it fell short of the test flight distance and was 2m from the winning "rocket"

But the overall result was great.

We came 5th out of 40.

[Water Rocket Expert]

Great job! The yellow one really looks cool. I was wondering what exactly was the green one for? 5th out of 40 sounds really good. How many meters did it go?

S.P.W.R.

[lowerstoford]

Green v1.0
Yellow v2.0

18m !!!!

The launch system was a cork and bike pump setup, so nothing like our compressor/cable tie pad.

Also unreliable PSI as cork can slip at any point, so maybe we did not have the pressure the others ahead of us had.

Launch test on our pad took it to 50m approx. at 60psi

The angled tube fins create huge lift on take off, as it leaves the pad, angled at 45' it swoops to 75'

Interesting project, but nothing like my main project. More details on this to follow....... Think BIG, Advanced FC, GPS, 2 way Radio Link, SpaceX F9........

[bugwubber]

Green v1.0
Yellow v2.0

18m !!!!

The launch system was a cork and bike pump setup, so nothing like our compressor/cable tie pad.

Also unreliable PSI as cork can slip at any point, so maybe we did not have the pressure the others ahead of us had.

Launch test on our pad took it to 50m approx. at 60psi

The angled tube fins create huge lift on take off, as it leaves the pad, angled at 45' it swoops to 75'

Interesting project, but nothing like my main project. More details on this to follow....... Think BIG, Advanced FC, GPS, 2 way Radio Link, SpaceX F9........

Congrats! I suspected they were going to use a cork. How can they teach science if they're gonig to ignore one of the basic tenets....ok stopping my rant there. :-)

Anyway, nice designs! Looking forward to the F9.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

The launch system was a cork and bike pump setup, so nothing like our compressor/cable tie pad.

Protip: If you are in a contest where they use a stopper that comes out at a random pressure, you should always use some sandpaper to roughen the circumference of the inside of the bottle mouth to make additional friction on the stopper. It will increase the launch pressure over a smooth bottle mouth.