Dragster Speed Record Attempt

:WRA2: WRA2 members only. Post your submissions for distance and speed records.
Water Rocket Dragster World Record Competition Rules
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thampson
Current WRA2 Dragster Speed & Distance Record Holder
Current WRA2 Dragster Speed & Distance Record Holder
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Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

Last weekend we had our first attempt at the Dragster speed record.

We have compiled the onboard and ground videos into this launch day video.

[ytubehd][/ytubehd]

All the details of the runs are detailed in the spreadsheet below
Dragster Speed Record Attempt.xls
Run1, Run2 + calculation details
(18 KiB) Downloaded 562 times
How we worked out the time to 150ft
We used VirtualDub to calculate the time it took for the car to reach the 150ft marker. To do this we used the side looking camera and went through the video file until we found the first frame where the car launched, this would be our starting time. Virtualdub works out what type of file it is and how many frames per second the camera captured. For the MD80′s each frame was 0.032 seconds.

We then went through the video file frame by frame until we could see the coloured cups in the frame. We then used the time from virtualdub for that marker when we saw the white line and the cup, one frame past the centre of the frame of the camera.

We would like to pass this over to the community for peer review.

-todd-
HHWRSA
Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au
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U.S. Water Rockets1
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by U.S. Water Rockets1 »

thampson wrote:Last weekend we had our first attempt at the Dragster speed record.

We have compiled the onboard and ground videos into this launch day video.

[ytubehd][/ytubehd]

All the details of the runs are detailed in the spreadsheet below
Dragster Speed Record Attempt.xls
How we worked out the time to 150ft
We used VirtualDub to calculate the time it took for the car to reach the 150ft marker. To do this we used the side looking camera and went through the video file until we found the first frame where the car launched, this would be our starting time. Virtualdub works out what type of file it is and how many frames per second the camera captured. For the MD80′s each frame was 0.032 seconds.

We then went through the video file frame by frame until we could see the coloured cups in the frame. We then used the time from virtualdub for that marker when we saw the white line and the cup, one frame past the centre of the frame of the camera.

We would like to pass this over to the community for peer review.

-todd-
Great work Todd! We will give your data a look and give feedback shortly! It's great to see the hard work pay off for you!
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by WRA2 »

thampson wrote:Last weekend we had our first attempt at the Dragster speed record.

We have compiled the onboard and ground videos into this launch day video.

[ytubehd][/ytubehd]

All the details of the runs are detailed in the spreadsheet below
Dragster Speed Record Attempt.xls
How we worked out the time to 150ft
We used VirtualDub to calculate the time it took for the car to reach the 150ft marker. To do this we used the side looking camera and went through the video file until we found the first frame where the car launched, this would be our starting time. Virtualdub works out what type of file it is and how many frames per second the camera captured. For the MD80′s each frame was 0.032 seconds.

We then went through the video file frame by frame until we could see the coloured cups in the frame. We then used the time from virtualdub for that marker when we saw the white line and the cup, one frame past the centre of the frame of the camera.

We would like to pass this over to the community for peer review.

-todd-
Hi Todd,

What is going to happen next is that we will leave this thread open for comments and discussion for the next 7 days. Then on April 17th we will start the voting process which will last for 7 more days. After successfully completing both the record would become official.

We are going to use your submission to document this "process" and produce an "official" submission process" which will get it's own page in the "competitions" section of the main site. I will also start a thread in the "competition rules" Q & A section where discussion on the "submission process can occur"

Nice work :WRA2:
Lisa Walker,
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:WRA2:The Water Rocket Achievement World Record Association :WRA2:
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Tim Chen
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by Tim Chen »

Well done video Todd!

I need to tell Mark to get on and look at it too!

Nice job!
Tim Chen
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thampson
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

@Tim and @USWaterrockets,
Thank you for the comments :)

@Lisa,
Thanks for the information. If there is anything else you need from me, let me know. Im not sure if Youtube changes the frame rate when they re-encode the videos. I have the original side-looking videos, but they are about 70MB each and in .avi format.

Im also not sure if the WR community is easily able to go frame by frame through the Youtube video to verify it. I did manage to download the Youtube video using a 3rd party tool, then convert the mp4 file to avi then look through it with Virtualdub. While I was able to do it, I needed to install 2 software tools and a codec set to do it.

I can upload the original sideways looking video files to my website (or here if there is space) of the two runs so that they can be downloaded to be verified. This may be easier. Let me know what you think.

-todd-
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Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au
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RaZias
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by RaZias »

Congratulations for all the work you did, you are really opening a way to WR-dragsters.

If you want to break that record you will have to add more nozzles, and maybe leaving a small one to keep some impulse during the run.
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by The Mooseheads »

Congrats Todd!

I watched your video and was wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me or do I see active steering on your car?
Rick C.
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thampson
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

@RaZias,
thanks for the comments :) Yes we are already staring to work on the next chassis which will have room for more than 3 bottles, and more than 1 nozzle :)

@TheMooseheads
Hi Rick, yes it does have active steering :) . We built a steering rack and attached it to the pivoting wheel hubs. We added an r/c servo that pushes the steering arm that we then control with our RC transmitter during the run. We got tired of ripping wheels off when earlier models kept hitting concrete gutters at full thrust :) We havent written off a car in a crash since :)

-todd-
HHWRSA
Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au
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thampson
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

The uploaded video I did on youtube cant be downloaded (easily) and put into a video editor to verify the claimed times. So I have been doing some work on making the onboard sideways videos smaller so they can be loaded here so that other members can verify the data.
Run1-sideways.wmv
Run1-Sideways
(9.87 MiB) Downloaded 262 times
Run2-sideways.wmv
Run2-sideways
(11.64 MiB) Downloaded 267 times
These videos are re-encoded as wmv files and are about 10MB each. However they are not exactly the same as the original videos from the camera. WA:

As we are using the amount of time for each frame of video as the basis for the time to 150ft, its also relevant what frame rate the video is. Case in point, the MD80 clone seems to take video at 30.999 frames per second (well mine anyway) and I just cant get any codecs to want to compress it. So each 20 seconds or so of video for each run is 90MB, which is too big. So I had to re-encode to a different frames rate to get a codec to compress it. In this case I re-encoded to 30.000fps and used wmv format.

But here was the issue, if you change frame rates you also change the amount of time per second for each frame. In this case @30.999fps each frame is 0.032s, @30.000fps each frame is 0.033s. To check if this made a difference I went through run 1 and run 2 using the 90MB original video @30.999fps and the 10MB re-encoded video @30.000fps and there were small difference. For those that want to see the details see the spreadsheet below.
Dragster Speed Record - Frame Rate Comparison.xls
Speed record - Frame Rate Comparison
(10 KiB) Downloaded 618 times
The bottom line is that the times going past the markers are slightly different , in the tens of thousandths of seconds, using the original video the average is 5.11s whereas using the re-encoded video its 5.12s.

I think for consistency we may have to require submitted videos for this record to be submitted in a standard frame rate ie: 30.000fps. Its probably not an issue now but it may be when it becomes more competitive and tenths of seconds may be the difference.

On a slightly different note if members dont have video software that allows them to go frame by frame through videos - I am using VirtualDub v1.9 to step through the videos. You can download it here
http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

To open wmv files in Virtual dub you need to add a Directshow Driver plugin. which is available here
http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/DShowInputDriver-0.5.zip

Create a plugins32 directory under the VirtualDub program directory, unzip the file above and put it in there, restart VirtualDub.
To open the wmv file you need to Choose File Menu, then Open Video File, then change the Files of Type dropdown box to DirectShow input driver. Choose your file you want to view then the file should then open. Use the right and left arrow keys to step through frame by frame. The Frame number and the video time are at the bottom of the screen

There are other applications that you can do frame by frame analysis as well such as Avisynth, AvSP, VideoRedo, KMPlayer but I haven't tried these.

I hope this assists standardizing the process and allows other members to verify the data as well

-todd-
HHWRSA
Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au
ctrout
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by ctrout »

Nice job and congrats!
looks like a fun idea
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Team Seneca
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by Team Seneca »

I have just examined your video and have not been able to find any fault with your documentation. Do you have a high res photo of the launcher so that I can see the safety cage in detail?

So far, so good!

Thanks.
Bill W.
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thampson
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

Hi Team Seneca,

Here are a couple of photos of the cage with the car and launcher fitted.
Rear View
Rear View
water-rocket-car-cage 014.jpg (932 KiB) Viewed 79 times
Front View
Front View
water-rocket-car-cage 012.jpg (498.26 KiB) Viewed 79 times
I have higher res versions of these photos if these dont provide enough details as well as other pics. Please let me know if you want to see any more detail

-todd-
HHWRSA
Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au
Neptune's Trident
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by Neptune's Trident »

WOW!!! This is XLNT!!! Great video & documentation
Nptune's Trident approves PH:
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U.S. Water Rockets1
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by U.S. Water Rockets1 »

Todd,

The video really well documents your efforts in setting the record. Your hard work really shows and the attention to detail is great.
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thampson
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Re: Dragster Speed Record Attempt

Post by thampson »

Thank you US Waterrockets :)

We are hoping the videos and details may encourage other to try their hand at WR Dragsters as well :)

-todd-
HHWRSA
Hornsby Heights Water Rocket Space Agency
http://wrocket.hampson.net.au