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Rocket Project

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Initial Design: Our group decided to try a parachute landing of the egg. To do this, we needed to have the parachute and egg inside a capsule under the nose cone. We thought that the nose cone would detach at the apex of the rocket’s flight due to the changing direction of the rocket. The rocket will reach its maximum height, stall, and then begin to fall. We planned to design the rocket to have a heavy weight at the front, so that it would land nose down. This means that after it has expended its fuel, the heavier nose will turn the rocket to be nose down. It is during this turn that my group hoped the centripetal force would pull the nose cone off the rocket, releasing the parachute and the egg capsule, allowing them to fall free of the …show more content…

We made them long, and notched their underside so that they would fit on the launcher. They were made out of cardboard, we wanted them to be strong, but light. We placed three fins about 120 degrees apart around the circumference of the bottle so that their weight would be balanced. Three fins were selected because two we felt would not be stable enough, and four would increase weight to a degree we didn’t feel was necessary. Three fins are stable, as well as light. They were attached with duct tape.
The first design involved the two liter bottle, with a tennis ball taped on top. This ball weighted the nose of the rocket to give it stability, and to ensure it landed nose down. We cut the ball in half, so that it was like a bowl, in order to make a seat for the egg capsule. It was lightly wedged in so it would stay seated during ascent, but pop out as the rocket changed direction at the top of its flight.
The nose cone was made of construction paper. It was rolled into a cone shape and just set on top of the capsule and parachute. It was held there during the rocket’s assent by the air running over it during flight, and detached at the top of the flight as the rocket began to turn and fall nose …show more content…

Andy had the idea to make a hexagonal parachute, and he cut it out. Aldrich and I helped cut and thread the strings through the chute. Laura and I designed the shape of the fins, and Andy cut them out of cardboard, and I helped him tape them on. We all brainstormed together the design of the capsule. Aldrich cut the tennis ball that the egg capsule sat in. Laura and I cut the sponges we used for cushion, I wrapped the egg in bubble wrap. It was my idea to make the nose cone out of paper, I made it, and Laura used scissors to clean up the edges on it. We made the capsule out of the top half of a water bottle that had been cut apart. We then attached the parachute through the bottle opening. We placed the egg inside the capsule, wrapped in bubble wrap, and further cushioned with sponge. Then, the bottom of the capsule was closed with a thick layer of packing foam. This foam would absorb a lot of the shock from the landing, and also weight the capsule so it would fall foam side down, with the parachute on

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