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The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sat Sep 14, 2013 11:18 pm
by bugwubber
So here's the Team SPEW lineup for 2013. Life really got in the way of our plans this summer so we had to save our more complex rockets with electronic recovery systems on them for next year.

They are from left to right
Charlie Laser Pears 2l (30ish flights?)
Traveling Sprinkler 1.5l (new)
Duck 1.5l (new)
CALGON 2l (new)
Water Buffalo 2l (3 flights)
Just add water 16oz (50ish flights)
And the Team SPEW Aquanaughts
Team SPEW 2013 Lineup
Team SPEW 2013 Lineup
DSC09868.jpg (170.4 KiB) Viewed 73 times
What's that? Oh the one in the back? That's BEST. I don't have a support structure to launch that one just yet. So BEST is probably going to get a 2014 laucnh date.

I am taking this motley crew and the Water Rocket Derby Launcher to a Scout Expo tomorrow. While I'm there, we'll do some comparisons and see which of these performs best. Any predictions?

Thanks,

Bugwubber

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:09 am
by ptx
bugwubber wrote:So here's the Team SPEW lineup for 2013. Life really got in the way of our plans this summer so we had to save our more complex rockets with electronic recovery systems on them for next year.

They are from left to right
Charlie Laser Pears 2l (30ish flights?)
Traveling Sprinkler 1.5l (new)
Duck 1.5l (new)
CALGON 2l (new)
Water Buffalo 2l (3 flights)
Just add water 16oz (50ish flights)
And the Team SPEW Aquanaughts

DSC09868.jpg

What's that? Oh the one in the back? That's BEST. I don't have a support structure to launch that one just yet. So BEST is probably going to get a 2014 laucnh date.

I am taking this motley crew and the Water Rocket Derby Launcher to a Scout Expo tomorrow. While I'm there, we'll do some comparisons and see which of these performs best. Any predictions?

Thanks,

Bugwubber

my bet will be on the Calgon, but only if it will carry the astronaut with the green hair .. :)
Nice fleet btw

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 11:26 am
by Spaceman Spiff
"Calgon, take me away!"

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 2:19 pm
by arjan
Water buffalo!

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:18 am
by bugwubber
Here's my favorite picture from the event.
DSC09880.jpg
DSC09880.jpg (391.38 KiB) Viewed 55 times
Here are the results-

Charlie Laser Pears: is proving hard to beat. Consistent performer
CALGON: apparently had too much fin as it lawn darted. Luckily I thought to use hot melt on the fins so they came right off. Will have to try smaller fins.
Go Fetch: is the purple tennis ball topped mini rocket from 2012. Excellent performer but comes down fast.
Duck: Really giving CLP a tight contest.
Water Buffalo: Seems to be having some stability problems. Larger fins may help. Everyone really got a kick out of loading the aquanaughts in it.
Traveling Sprinkler: lost its box fin by this flight. Need to redo the attachment.
Just add water: excellent flighs just not as high.

So a couple rebuilds and some more research is definitely warranted. :-)

Bugwubber

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:03 am
by bugwubber
Here's a slide show with some more launch pictures.

[youtube][/youtube]

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 10:19 pm
by U.S. Water Rockets1
Those are some really nice pictures! That multi-rocket launcher is really paying off. It's cool to see several rockets frozen in mid-launch all together.

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 11:36 pm
by bugwubber
U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:Those are some really nice pictures! That multi-rocket launcher is really paying off. It's cool to see several rockets frozen in mid-launch all together.
Thanks!

I like how they are each at a different stage of flight simply because while the % of water to volume is constant for the different size bottles, the nozzle size is also constant and therefore those with less water simply empty faster and accelerate quicker due to lower mass. Definitely was not what I originally expected. At some point I hope to put electronics in each one so I can make a graph showing the flight of each compared against each other.

Duck and Traveling Sprinkler (yellow and green ones) should have had similar flight profiles but I suspect there was some variance- perhaps extra wear on Duck's nozzle since it has done many more launches than Traveling Sprinkler. There's several pictures showing Duck ahead of Traveling Sprinkler even though they are almost identical. Could also be that the end tube is introducing more friction. I'll have to swap them around and see if I get the same effect.

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:39 pm
by U.S. Water Rockets1
bugwubber wrote:
U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:Those are some really nice pictures! That multi-rocket launcher is really paying off. It's cool to see several rockets frozen in mid-launch all together.
Thanks!

I like how they are each at a different stage of flight simply because while the % of water to volume is constant for the different size bottles, the nozzle size is also constant and therefore those with less water simply empty faster and accelerate quicker due to lower mass. Definitely was not what I originally expected. At some point I hope to put electronics in each one so I can make a graph showing the flight of each compared against each other.

Duck and Traveling Sprinkler (yellow and green ones) should have had similar flight profiles but I suspect there was some variance- perhaps extra wear on Duck's nozzle since it has done many more launches than Traveling Sprinkler. There's several pictures showing Duck ahead of Traveling Sprinkler even though they are almost identical. Could also be that the end tube is introducing more friction. I'll have to swap them around and see if I get the same effect.
A common experiment done in schools is to plot the distance a water rocket travels versus the mass of water in the rocket. They equate the distance with the velocity, so it shows exactly what you see in your "experiment". The lower mass will accelerate to a higher speed to a point but then the lack of reacton mass shortens the flight, so you end up with a nice bell curve showing where the sweet spot is for water fill. Your launcher could make this experiment quite easy because you could launch multiple identical rockets at one time.

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:38 pm
by Jamie5335
Hello bugwubber,

That is a very civil group of rockets you have there, and the multi launcher is brill!

Do you use Robinson Couplings in some of your rockets.

Keep it up! J

Jamie B
JSB Rocketry

Re: The 2013 Team SPEW lineup

Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:27 pm
by bugwubber
Jamie5335 wrote:Hello bugwubber,

That is a very civil group of rockets you have there, and the multi launcher is brill!

Do you use Robinson Couplings in some of your rockets.

Keep it up! J

Jamie B
JSB Rocketry

Thanks Jamie!

While I do have a number of bottles and rockets that use the robinson coupling, they are not in any of the pictures or launches above.

The rockets above all have single pressure bottles. The payload sections are attached either by non removable glued skin or in the case of Charlie Laser Pears and CALGON, the only thing glued to the pressure vessel is fins and a bottle cap on top. The payload section then just screws into that bottle cap. The Just add water rocket is unique- it is just two bottles glued bottom to bottom. They are all Ballast Dumping Recovery except for Go Fetch which uses simple Air Compression Recovery (aka tennis ball tipped lawn dart).

Thanks,

Bugwubber