Rockets-in-Brighton, UK

[rockets-in-brighton]

Hi everyone. My name is Steve, and I live in Brighton (on the south coast of England). My team is Rockets-in-Brighton, and that's me and my 5-year old son. We're not aiming for any of the WRA2 challenges, just for fun. However, I'd quite like to send up a video camera and get it back intact, so I'm very interested in dependable recovery systems.

So far, I have a launcher and have successfully launched a number of small 500ml rockets. I'm now building larger (2L) rockets and experimenting with a Tomy Timer side-deploying parachute. The launch was very satisfying but sadly the parachute didn't deploy, and I haven't had time to try it again. I suspect it was bad engineering, as the rubber band holding the parachute chamber door closed could all too easily slip off and behind the TT handle.

I have a small, slowly-updated site http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rocket ... hton?hl=en hosted as a Google Group (which works quite nicely as a wiki.)

I've been enjoying the chat on the forum and have picked up a few useful tips along the way. I look forward to being able to contribute as I gain experience.

Best regards
Steve

[chriswaterrockets]

Hey Steve

Welcome to the forum! Great to have you here!

Great website too, and I see you aleady have some videos on youtube!

christian

[rockets-in-brighton]

Great website too, and I see you aleady have some videos on youtube!

Glad you like the site, it's really just a notebook for me so I don't lose things. I do have a few more videos, with higher resolution, but haven't had time to process them. Hopefully before too long I can upload them.

Cheers
Steve
Rockets-in-Brighton

[Spaceman Spiff]

Hi Steve, nice to meet you.

[reno1]

Welcome to the forum.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

Welcome Steve,

Nice to see another fan of aerial photography! It's something you will really get addicted to!

[rockets-in-brighton]

Nice to see another fan of aerial photography! It's something you will really get addicted to!

I'm definitely looking forward to it. So far I haven't risked an onboard camera because my parachute deployment experiments have all failed. I have a suitable camera, it's a Busbi: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Busbi-BUSCD0001 ... B000VWYQ20

(Sensor VGA 640x480 (300K pixels), frame rate 30fps, format AVI, SD/MMC memory, 2×AA cells, 106mm × 62mm × 33mm, 72g (without cells). The price has gone up since I bought it at about £27)

I have made a foam enclosure for the camera to protect it from hard knocks. It neatly fits into a payload section made from a 2L bottle section. In this it might survive a backslider-style landing, but not a lawn-dart landing.

So it stays in the drawer until I can get the chute out reliably.

[WRA2]

Hi everyone. My name is Steve, and I live in Brighton (on the south coast of England). My team is Rockets-in-Brighton, and that's me and my 5-year old son. We're not aiming for any of the WRA2 challenges, just for fun. However, I'd quite like to send up a video camera and get it back intact, so I'm very interested in dependable recovery systems.

So far, I have a launcher and have successfully launched a number of small 500ml rockets. I'm now building larger (2L) rockets and experimenting with a Tomy Timer side-deploying parachute. The launch was very satisfying but sadly the parachute didn't deploy, and I haven't had time to try it again. I suspect it was bad engineering, as the rubber band holding the parachute chamber door closed could all too easily slip off and behind the TT handle.

I have a small, slowly-updated site http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rocket ... hton?hl=en hosted as a Google Group (which works quite nicely as a wiki.)

I've been enjoying the chat on the forum and have picked up a few useful tips along the way. I look forward to being able to contribute as I gain experience.

Best regards
Steve

Welcome to the forum Steve,

Our competitions are only part of what the WRA2 is. Our goal is to be the source for water rocket information for everyone. We sponsor the forum to provide a place where all water rocket hobbyists can interact in a united community weather you are competing or not. Membership in the WRA2 is not a requirement to participate in the forum.

We look forward to your contributions.