"Bucky Rocket Blaster"
How Bucky came to life... By: Abigail Gillis
Day 1 - Research
The more research, the more background knowledge that can be used in the future.
Looking at rockets other people have made
Engineering Design Process
- Define the Problem
- Do Background Research
- Specify Requirements
- Brainstorm Solutions
- Choose the Best Solution
- Do Development Work
- Build a Prototype
- Test and Redesign
Day 2 - Fins and General Structure
My group has four fins on the rocket equally spread apart. We measured the circumference then divide it by four to find where to place the fins on the rocket. We built our fins out of a cardboard box. We made our fins two layers thick because we wanted our fins to be stiff. We put our fins toward the bottom and farther back on the rocket. We taped our fins on using electrical tape.
We built the main structure of the rocket with 1 1/2 2 liter bottle by using one whole bottle then connecting another half of a bottle to attach the nosecone without getting water in the parachute.
Day 3 - Construction of Parachute and Nosecone
We designed a long and pointed cone. Long, skinny and pointed cones are proven more aerodynamic than the wider, shorter nosecones, however it also makes the parachute harder to deploy. We decided to make the cone out of card stock. The cone is sitting loosely on the body of the rocket so that the parachute can deploy. The nose cone is attached to rest of the rocket by thick coarse yarn.
For the parachute my group decided that we would make our parachute out of a garbage bag. So would cut off the open side of the bag to make it shorter and use the end already sealed together to have the end rounded for the parachute shape. We made the parachute with 16 lines to connect the parachute to the rocket. The we are also evenly spread the lines out and tied them on. This is how we made our nosecone and parachute.
Day 4 - Decorating and retouching of nosecone
When we went into class for the day we were surprised to see that our entire nosecone busted because we put electrical tape on card stock and not enough. To fix this mistake we put a tremendous amount of scotch tape and then white duct tape over the top. This fixed the issue however it made the parachute harder to deploy, which is something I would have changed for the future.
Day 5 - More Finishing Touches and Testing
Rocket Statistics
The name of my rocket is: Bucky Rocket Blaster
Mass of my rocket in grams: 269.5 gm
Height of my Rocket in cm: 70.5 cm
Volume of my pressure bottle in mL: 2,000 mL
Best volume of water for launch in mL: 700 mL
Best launch time: 9.23 seconds