The design of the rocket was meant to be small and aerodynamic, not too big just slim and pretty small. The rocket is 12 inches and 1 inch in diameter I think, the fins were meant to go out a little wide to stabilize the rocket and were made like parallelograms for them to look cool and be effective. The rocket had plenty of space from the top to bottom to fit the parachute. The rocket was made of completely cardboard and paper to be lightweight and somewhat sturdy.
The final design of the rocket from the beginning didn't change at all from the original design. The only thing that changed was that we didn't use balsa wood for the fins. The final rocket looked pretty good but I messed up on the body by putting too much glue in the beginning and not having very straight paper strips to begin with.
The final design of the rocket from the beginning didn't change at all from the original design. The only thing that changed was that we didn't use balsa wood for the fins. The final rocket looked pretty good but I messed up on the body by putting too much glue in the beginning and not having very straight paper strips to begin with.
The rocket didn't work out as expected, at first the launch was fine then it curved to the left and proceeded in that direction for the whole duration of the flight. It went like this, it went straight and then curved left really hard probably because the launch pad was curved or the fins were uneven. Because the rocket went out of sight, we didn't see the parachute come out or anything. What happened was after takeoff we went to look for it and never found it so I figure it was a hard landing since it was so low to the ground and parallel to the ground.
My expectation was for the rocket to not have a perfect flight but close to it, it didn't turn out as expected but I'm just happy it flew well. What worked were the slim design, it went pretty fast and didn't have a whole lot of resistance. What didn't work is where I think the fault was and that was the fins were slightly off and i didn't have a counter balance to the launch lug either. Making this I learned about the core parts of a rocket and how to make them with commonly found resources. Every part to a rocket is important and the all work with each other for a stable fast flight and good recovery. Making a rocket from scratch is also pretty time consuming and not an easy task. What I would do differently next time is make sure the fins are perfectly aligned and make a parachute to break the rocket's fall instead of a streamer. In conclusion the rocket flight went well, the rocket flew really far to the left, and probably crash landed because we never found it and was really close to the ground.
My expectation was for the rocket to not have a perfect flight but close to it, it didn't turn out as expected but I'm just happy it flew well. What worked were the slim design, it went pretty fast and didn't have a whole lot of resistance. What didn't work is where I think the fault was and that was the fins were slightly off and i didn't have a counter balance to the launch lug either. Making this I learned about the core parts of a rocket and how to make them with commonly found resources. Every part to a rocket is important and the all work with each other for a stable fast flight and good recovery. Making a rocket from scratch is also pretty time consuming and not an easy task. What I would do differently next time is make sure the fins are perfectly aligned and make a parachute to break the rocket's fall instead of a streamer. In conclusion the rocket flight went well, the rocket flew really far to the left, and probably crash landed because we never found it and was really close to the ground.