O'si'yo from Northwest Indian College!!!!

[NWIC-SC]

Greetings everyone from NWIC. Me and our comp. lab instructor have taken a tremendous interest in the field of water rocketry and would be very appreciative of any and all advice on ways and tecniques relating to building high altitude water rockets. We have currently began with simple 2L. pop bottle rockets and a simple tire pump launcher set up just to get the idea of the priniples down. Now we are trying to find a starting point for building higher altitude rockets.
We are currently entertaining the idea of using flourescent light safety covers for a body but we are still extremely new to this field. Any advice and such is very welcome. Thanx all!!!

[Jelo]

welcome to the forum! okay quik tips, you should fill the rocket a third with water. also put a noze cone on to reduce drag. iv made a page on fins here if you wana have a look at the possible tipes of fins: http://www.wra2.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=764

[rockets-in-brighton]

Greetings everyone from NWIC. Me and our comp. lab instructor have taken a tremendous interest in the field of water rocketry and would be very appreciative of any and all advice on ways and tecniques relating to building high altitude water rockets. We have currently began with simple 2L. pop bottle rockets and a simple tire pump launcher set up just to get the idea of the priniples down. Now we are trying to find a starting point for building higher altitude rockets.
We are currently entertaining the idea of using flourescent light safety covers for a body but we are still extremely new to this field. Any advice and such is very welcome. Thanx all!!!

Ho-wa! Welcome again. The principles for high altitude water rockets are much as you would expect... once you have sorted out stability, if you want to go higher you must do one or more of: increase the thrust; decrease the mass; improve the coefficient of drag.

To increase the thrust, you could use alternative gasses or liquids, or increase the pressure (may need a reinforced bottle, or a different kind of pressure vessel) or improve the nozzle's efficiency by altering the shape of the vessel or nozzle.

To decrease the mass, you can choose alternative materials that will still hold your desired pressure.

To improve Cd, you can alter the shape and texture of your rocket body and control surfaces.

You can also use multiple stages to change more than one of these variables at a time. You will probably also need to add some means of safe recovery once your rockets start going very high, unless they are disposable

Please ask the forum for more details in areas that interest you. Good luck, and please be sure to report back with your results!

[NWIC-SC]

O'si'yo again!!

Thank you for the warm welcome and the tips. We will begin instituting these tips into our FTC models as well as the fin designs. Sometimes Gary, the instructor will be on here or I will be. Either way, we are extremely grateful for tips and the warm welcome and will do our very best to contribute something to this forum...........Even if it is only some hilarious videos of our first launches....lol!


Wa'do

Robert,NWIC student


OMG!!!!! Indians in space????!!!!

[rockets-in-brighton]

Funnily enough, after I sketched out that quick note above I found this extremely useful summary of tips for improving water rocket altitude, titled "30 Tips to get your water rocket to fly higher", on the main Air Command Water Rockets site http://home.people.net.au/~aircommand/flying_higher.htm. Much more detailed and very comprehensive, with lots of references.

I shall be studying these tips over the long winter...