Rocket launching

Launching the rockets was lots of fun. The launcher that I build work great or so you can say but it did what it was needed for. The launcher was able to hold its pressure at about 80psi which was great because it made the rockets go a great distance. I had some strings attached to some rods so that we would be able to pull them when the pressure was where we wanted it but after a couple of launched it completely fail and I had to resort to hold it with my hands. Holding with my hands was a great idea at the time up until I got wet from the multiple rockets that were launched but it was worth it. It seemed like everyone was having fun watching some rockets fly and others completely failing. Josh of course won in the achieving the maximum height then Amanda's daughter and I came somewhat close to josh but we didn't beat him. Since we did fairly decent josh announced that he would be buying shirts for the people that came close. The shirt will have the robotics logo along with a sub tittle of projectile specialist. 

The video is a bit messed up but you can somewhat see how high the rockets went.

The wait is over

It took a while but I finally heard back from Estrella Mountain saying that I was accepted. Apparently they forgot about me and I probably would have never found out if I got accepted. Well at least now I know for certain that I will be attending. I was supposed to take part in both a poster and an oral presentations but since i didn't hear back from them for the longest time they told me I was just accepted to the poster presentation which I didn't mind.

The easy part of presenting at Estrella mountain is that I already have a poster from ASU the only thing I need to do is re format it to fit the specifications required since the ASU poster was 36x36in and I need a 36x48 poster. Aside from that rearranging everything on my poster was simple. I also added more things to this poster since I have more space to work with.

The difficult part to this has begun since we are required to write a lab report for our whole project it became a priority since most of us (interns) haven't started it has proven to be somewhat of a challenge. Everyone was freaking out at first because they thought we were going to be writing a 20 page report until Amanda cleared it up and I believe she said somewhere in the 8 page range.

Testing our rockets

Well it doesn't look like much but this puppy can fly, not very high but enough to make an impression. The first launch went pretty well and surprisingly as it was coming down it flew like an airplane and it was awesome. To make it go to a higher altitude I had to add weight to the nose cone and I did that by tapping washers to the cone. I had to make so that the washers sat on the outside because there was no way I would be able to put them inside. I made 2 rockets and both flew but the second was pretty crappy it was too heavy coming down like a lawn dart.
One of the challenges we had to face was in regard to the launcher it was not well designed so it wouldn't hold more than 20 psi before the rocket taking off. I had to come up with a new design that is able to hold pressure up to 80-100 psi so that we are able to achieve a greater distance.
When it comes to filling the bottle I found that it is best to fill a maximum of 1/3 of the bottle to enable it to reach a maximum height. also being able to fly straight is a result from building fins to stabilize it while it is in flight.