Amber and I were partners for this project. We tried our best to split the work equally and to collaborate our ideas in order to make the best rocket and most effective rocket possible. As such, we both did an equal amount of research and took turns writing the blog posts each night. That being said, the past few weeks have certainly been interesting.
Our rocket had fins, a nose cone, and a parachute. Amber provided the materials to create the parachute and she also bought the cone. We did multiple launches each day in order to test the effectiveness of each addition that we made to our cone (For example, the second launch day was to test our fins, third day to test parachute, etc.)
For the first 3 launch days, we used 500mL of water and 40 psi. The last two days, however, we decided to use 600mL and keep the psi at 40psi. This resulted in our rocket going higher than on the days before.
This was the best and longest launch that we had, which was from the final launch day.
As stated in the previous blog post, conditions certainly weren't optimal for launching a rocket, but we did the best that we could and our data, for the most part, was quite consistent. In order, these were the flight times for our last seven launches: 5.25 s, 3.4s, 4.1s, 5.1s, 7.3s, 3.4s, 7s. The seven-second times were our best times.
Looking back, our rocket would have faired a bit better if we had been able to find a more effective way to allow the parachute to deploy. We experienced a few problems with it deploying too soon, too late, or not at all. We also probably should have used a more circular parachute, rather than a deep trash bag, which may have been too much chute. Our fins were made of cardboard and ultimately got soaked and bent in the rain, which I'm sure, defeated their purpose. If we had the chance to change our design to function better in the rain, we probably would have covered our fins in duct tape and had a more circular parachute.
Other than that, We honestly believe that for the most part, everything concerning our rocket design worked as planned (enough to have reached the 10 second requirement) and that the weather conditions of the final launch day was the deal-breaker.
It looks like you guys split the work for the project very evenly, so it looks like it was a good partnership! Shelly and I were similar to the two of you in that we tried to do every other blogpost. I like that you had one modification per launch day because I'm sure it helped you figure out what worked for your rocket, and what didn't work. I think your period ended up with the worst of the weather, but you guys got through it! And hey, 7 seconds isn't bad! Good job on your rocket! (:
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