Hello from Canada's "WET" coast

[Mac]

I was building "Volcanoes" for my grandsons using Mentos and soda pop with various nozzle configurations when the eldest asked if I could build a rocket like that. That led to some experimentation and some pretty successful launches using an air compressor and water. I thought I was doing something original... then I thought "Perhaps the Internet might have some information about hydro-pneumatic rockets". WOW! Its amazing what is being dong. There is a LOT I can learn. This Forum looks very professionally done and seemed to be a great place to spend some time so here I am.

Having an engineering bent, I hope to contribute and not just suck up your knowledge.

[U.S. Water Rockets1]

I was building "Volcanoes" for my grandsons using Mentos and soda pop with various nozzle configurations when the eldest asked if I could build a rocket like that. That led to some experimentation and some pretty successful launches using an air compressor and water. I thought I was doing something original... then I thought "Perhaps the Internet might have some information about hydro-pneumatic rockets". WOW! Its amazing what is being dong. There is a LOT I can learn. This Forum looks very professionally done and seemed to be a great place to spend some time so here I am.

Having an engineering bent, I hope to contribute and not just suck up your knowledge.

Hey Mac,

Welcome to the water rocket forum. You've come to the right place if you want to exchange ideas about water rockets. We have an awesome mix of people here of all skill levels and we can all learn from one another! It's great to have another person with new ideas and perspectives to share!!

[Brian]

to the forum, what are your rockets like

[Mac]

Thanks for the welcome guys

My rockets are/were pretty basic. The first ones were just 2 litre soda bottles fired from a pvc launcher that I cobbled together.

The second generation was adding the top 3/4s of a second bottle to the bottom of the first bottle and attaching it with clear packing tape to give the rocket more streamlining.

My grandson then asked for a parachute so we added fins (that he sketched out) made from coroplast and I made a loose fitting nosecone with a garbage bag parachute. It did fly but not as well as we hoped. A fin broke off on launch and the parachute did not open because the nose did not come off even though it was very loose.

That was the point at which I thought about doing an Internet search to try and find more information about rocketry, which is when I discovered this forum, amongst other stuff.

Now my son-in-law (who is a mathematician and software developer) is getting turned on by the the actual science of rocketry and wants to explore some avenues. I can see this will turn out to be a "family" affair and will no doubt lead to some interesting experiments.

Curiously, when I built my first launcher, I actually re-created a release collet that was very similar to one which I now know was devised years ago by an Australian water rocket enthusiast. Mine is more complex but uses the same "zap tie" idea that he used. Funny how people can devise similar or even identical devices in total isolation from each other. I expect that many of my ideas have already been explored by others but it will be fun to see if I can produce improved results using a different approach and perhaps different materials. I have a small machine shop and can produce almost anything from scratch so that part may provide even more enjoyment than the actual flights themselves.

If you want to see a photo of our last rocket, please tell me how to attach it to a posting. I am new to this forum stuff and it will take me a while to find my way around.

[WRA2]

If you want to see a photo of our last rocket, please tell me how to attach it to a posting. I am new to this forum stuff and it will take me a while to find my way around.

To upload an attachment look at the bottom of the posting page and you will see an "upload attachment" box. Click the browse button (which will open a windows explorer window on your PC). Browse to the file you wish to upload and double click it. Type a comment in the "File comment window" (if you wish) and then push the submit button. You can also combine it with a regular post by typing a post in the normal "Posting" box.

Welcome to the forum

[Mac]

[quote="WRA2"]To upload an attachment look at the bottom of the posting page and you will see an "upload attachment" box[quote="Mac"]

I must be blind or I am missing some privileges. I cannot see an "upload attachment box" anywhere on my display. Does the fact that my operating system is "Linux" rather than "Windows" make any difference?

FYI at the bottom of my posting page are four lines:
Board Index.....
Who is online
Users browsing this forum
and a forum selection input box.

Below the actual posting are two panes:
The left pane has "Options" and contains 5 settings, of which one is [img] (which I assume is Image) and it shows it is set to "Off"
The right pane also has five line with check boxes. The bottom two are checked (Attach Signature... and Notify me...)
What am I missing?

[WRA2]

What OS you use should not make a difference. You should now see an "upload attachment" Box located right below the "submit button" when you post. The problem was with the "privileges". Thank you for pointing that out.

[Mac]

All yes, I now have a box to input images and I can find images by browsing BUT nothing appears in the input box when I select an image. (The image is jpg). Since I do not have a problem attaching images to emails and my wife seems to be able to add images to forums to which she subscribes, I wonder if there is another setting change I must make that is particular to this forum.

Sorry to be so much trouble to you.

[WRA2]

All yes, I now have a box to input images and I can find images by browsing BUT nothing appears in the input box when I select an image. (The image is jpg). Since I do not have a problem attaching images to emails and my wife seems to be able to add images to forums to which she subscribes, I wonder if there is another setting change I must make that is particular to this forum.

Sorry to be so much trouble to you.

Does the file path appear in the "filename" box when you select it? If so click the "add the file" button Then you will get a "posted attachments window below the "upload attachments" box with the filename of you attachment in the "filename box.

Maybe this is an OS issue. Do you have access to a windows based PC to try from?

If this is an OS problem I may have to update some software here.

[Mac]

Sorry for the delay; I went to the dollar store in search of wind-up toys from which I could liberate the mechanism to make "tomy timers". There are a large variety of mechanisms but got two that I think will work.

To answer your question, when I click on [Browse] I can find my desktop and the file. The path on the Gnome browser is correct but when I select the file, nothing appears in the input window to the left of [Browse]. There is nothing in the window to the right of [Add the file] but just for the heck of it I clicked that and got a message that the filename was unknown, though it tried to add something for a while until I killed the op.

I do still have a computer with Windows XP for my drafting program so I will fire it up try it later to see what happens. Be back to you within an hour.

Mac

[Mac]

Hi, I'm back and I realized I have Virtual XP on this machine. It seems to find the file now so I will try to attach it to this posting.

We were staying at a lakeside cabin in the mountains and it rained one day. I had taken my launcher and small air compressor and my grandson, Liam, asked if we could built a "real" rocket with parachute and everything.

With no material other than what we could scrounge up at the cabin, plus a piece of coroplast that I had taken because my wife uses it for a "quick and dirty" easel when she is painting in the outdoors, this was the result. It looked good but was a bit short on performance. Liam was happy anyway and I promised him I would do some research when we got home on Friday which is when I discovered this forum.

1st_REAL_rocket .jpg (199.34 KiB) Viewed 21 times

So it looks like my inability to upload a photo when using Linux (Ubuntu 8.04) was caused by some OS problem.

But before you do any serious work trying to find it, I will take another picture, make sure it is in jpg format and try to send it with Linux.

I will do that within the next half hour and report back to you.

[Mac]

Nope:

Just took another jpg shot and tried to upload it but while [browse] gets into the Linux file structure OK and shows me the files, the forum attachments does not grab the image from the source directory. I left the filename just as it was in the camera with no spaces or special characters. Even though there was nothing indicated in the [Browse] window I clicked "Add the file" and there was an uploading message which went on and on. When nothing seemed to be happening I killed the operation.

I take it that I am probably the only Linux user on the forum so it may not be worth your time to do a bunch of work just for one person, but if I can be of any help, please feel free to call on me.

Mac

I'll be damned but just for the "H" of it I just checked the preview of this posting and it appears that the picture I took is attached. The various timers I found in three different toys are on the extreme right.

It will be interesting to see if the image does actually post to the forum.

[WRA2]

The photo was uploaded.

I'll poke around and see if there are any software upgrades to make the attachment interface more Linux friendly.

[Mac]

Thanks. let me know if I can help in any way.

Mac

[rockets-in-brighton]

I use linux (on an eeepc 901). No problems here.