making it challenging

Hi I'm Mike and am new to the forums and rocketry. I got a question about rocket building challenges. It seems to be that the whole point of people building a low power rocket is to see how high they can make it go. Although it is neat to see your project shoot out of sight I'm finding it more fun to make up challenges. My first challenge is to have an egg onboard and have it survive the trip. My next challenge will be to see if I can have a successful flight with a heavy payload on board (1-2 pound weight to start). Using only low power rockets makes it a fun challenge two because you have to start using multiple motors rather then just one big one.
I know about the challenge to have two eggs on board a rocket and the highest rocket with both eggs surviving wins. My question is does anyone else do challenges like these? Are there some neat challenges for me to be trying? and how do you challenge yourself?

here is a link to another forum post of mine showing my progress in the challenges.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?129909-My-ugly-rocket-chanel

My question is does anyone else do challenges like these? Are there some neat challenges for me to be trying? and how do you challenge yourself?

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I participate in NAR sanctioned competition. The challenges as a group activity are fun, and makes you a better modeler/flier.
-Wolf

astronwolf said:

I participate in NAR sanctioned competition. The challenges as a group activity is fun, and makes you a better modeler/flier.
-Wolf

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I agree. I had to bring my A-game to building a couple of contest models (Stratus Gale, Rose-A-Roc). It's pushed me in ways that HPR hasn't. For a competition next weekend, I'm trying to design and build (with help) egg-lofting rockets for E motors that can be prepped and flown by a 7 and a 9 year old with a good chance of recovery. Very different from making a rocket for me to fly in the same event!

That said, I also enjoy setting goals for myself, just for the shear joy of accomplishing those personal milestones. You might want to look at the rules for the various NAR events: https://www.nar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2015Oct-PinkBook.pdf

My challenges are ongoing and are keeping my rockets out of the woods and ocean.

woah that "stratus gale" is a really neat idea. I only custom build stuff and wont use a kit so it could prove to be a great challenge. I also have RC equipment and could see about hooking a servo or 2 to a rudder or something like that. thanks for the ideas.

There are many reasons to build low power stuff, not just altitude birds. Out of my 30 or so rockets, only a few are what I would consider to be high performance.

mbecks said:

Hi I'm Mike and am new to the forums and rocketry. I got a question about rocket building challenges. It seems to be that the whole point of people building a low power rocket is to see how high they can make it go. Although it is neat to see your project shoot out of sight I'm finding it more fun to make up challenges. My first challenge is to have an egg onboard and have it survive the trip. My next challenge will be to see if I can have a successful flight with a heavy payload on board (1-2 pound weight to start). Using only low power rockets makes it a fun challenge two because you have to start using multiple motors rather then just one big one.
I know about the challenge to have two eggs on board a rocket and the highest rocket with both eggs surviving wins. My question is does anyone else do challenges like these? Are there some neat challenges for me to be trying? and how do you challenge yourself?

here is a link to another forum post of mine showing my progress in the challenges.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?129909-My-ugly-rocket-chanel

Click to expand...

Trust me, it's not always neat to see your project shoot out of sight.

mbecks said:

Hi I'm Mike and am new to the forums and rocketry. I got a question about rocket building challenges. It seems to be that the whole point of people building a low power rocket is to see how high they can make it go. Although it is neat to see your project shoot out of sight I'm finding it more fun to make up challenges. My first challenge is to have an egg onboard and have it survive the trip. My next challenge will be to see if I can have a successful flight with a heavy payload on board (1-2 pound weight to start). Using only low power rockets makes it a fun challenge two because you have to start using multiple motors rather then just one big one.
I know about the challenge to have two eggs on board a rocket and the highest rocket with both eggs surviving wins. My question is does anyone else do challenges like these? Are there some neat challenges for me to be trying? and how do you challenge yourself?
here is a link to another forum post of mine showing my progress in the challenges.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?129909-My-ugly-rocket-chanel

Click to expand...

Before we go any further are you an adult or a younger rocketeer? Yes this has a major effect on how many of the answers to your questions well be typed.

There are more "challenges" in model rocketry then you can shake a stick at. That said there are also Safety measures Which MUST be followed to keep our hobby the safest outdoor activity ever. Reading some of you other post I'm concerned you have no Idea there is a Model Rocket Safety Code that must be followed to keep not only the model flyer but the unsuspecting public safe. This is particularly true if your flying on public accessible land, parks or sport fields. If your flying on your own land there are is a little less restriction and some aspects that can be taken a bit less strictly but Everything any of us design, build and fly MUST BE done with Safety First method in mind always.

Egg-loft with either a single or two grade A large hens eggs has been a NAR competition event almost since the beginning of the hobby in the mid 1960's. Having the Egg or Eggs come back unbroken really isn't all that difficult if you do the math or use a simulation program. OBTW Trial and Error is a just plain silly exercise in this day and age. You really need to think (and do the math) before you build.

The standard NAR Payload is a 1oz weight. Usually a sand filled BT-20 capped tube. There are several different power levels that also use one or more of these standard payload weights.

Before you go any further I'd suggest strongly visiting www.nar.org and download a copy of the Model Rocket Sport Code (the Pink Book). READ it. It will give you an overview of the many different events open to your design, scratch building & flying.
Please remember our hobby is always a single mishap or accident away from being outlawed, so ALWAYS think Safety First in everything you attempt.

Ps: One last thought a 16oz payload in any Model Rocket (up to 1500g -3.3lbs) is simply absurd....an accident waiting to happen.

for a 600g rocket it would not be safe to attempt to launch using BP motors, it could in theory be done with an F39, but it would be a low flight, and given your track record of successful recoveries (undamaged ready to fly again) a single flight rocket.
Rex

I'm 28, I will look into using simulation software. I live in Canada so my laws and regulations may be different then yours. I looked into Canadian law for low powered rockets and I believe I am 100% legal with the way I'm conducting my launches and builds. I went to canadianrocketry.org and looked at there safety code. I am following most of it but found some safety concerns on my part so I will be correcting those issues.

I'll share a couple of the challenges I've set for myself so far to increase my building skills:

Build a rocket with $0 and nothing intended for rocketry e.g. no balsa sheets, no kit parts. Make it as airworthy and safe as any other kit. This is tough. I may have to try this again.

I have also rolled my own tube out of office paper. I attempted to match a BT-60 but came out 1.5mm wider... I built a medium sized D rocket out of this. Not pretty but it worked.

Making your own nose cones is beyond me, I've tried several times but have only made one halfway decent.

Cabernut said:

I'll share a couple of the challenges I've set for myself so far to increase my building skills:

Build a rocket with $0 and nothing intended for rocketry e.g. no balsa sheets, no kit parts. Make it as airworthy and safe as any other kit. This is tough. I may have to try this again.

I have also rolled my own tube out of office paper. I attempted to match a BT-60 but came out 1.5mm wider... I built a medium sized D rocket out of this. Not pretty but it worked.

Making your own nose cones is beyond me, I've tried several times but have only made one halfway decent.

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I think I've accomplished the first challenge pretty well as the only rockets I have built were out of none kit stuff. I've actually never owned a rocket kit. The only portion I can't do is the motor because its basically illegal in Canada to build your own rocket motor.
so far all I've been doing for nose cones is take a foam ball cutting it into a cone and trying to sand it till its even on all edges. It never is as perfect as id like though haha.

mbecks said:

I am a 28 year old. Safety is a priority. I do research before building a rocket to make sure what I'm going to build will in theory work. For instance I wouldn't just throw a one pound weight into a rocket and launch it, I would first look up of it was possible. I do enjoy trial and error, I'll check out simulations launches, but will probably still try my ideas practically.

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I too enjoy the practical trial of a design but a program such as OpenRocket is a useful tool for weeding out the impractical before committing to a launch. The two scratch builds that I have done to this.point benefitted from sims. I was able to experiment with borderline ideas without putting an unstable airframe up.

If you want to go the old school route, there are plenty here that are old school masters, check out The Handbook of Model Rocketry by G. Harry Stein from your local library. You can certainly design, build and safely launch your own designs safely without using sim programs and the like but you still need to verify their airworthiness before you launch. Heck, even if you go purely with software, the handbook is still a valuable resource.

The software and the book (especially the book) is a source of knowledge from which to gain experience. If you want to challenge yourself, read the book and you will be able to do so in much less haphazard manner and will better understand what happened when something doesn't work right.

Do try new things but a good knowledge base makes it much less painful.

Great I'll check out that book. You must have caught that post before I changed it haha. I'm going to get the programs and use "use style" methods together. I will mostly use methods but if they arn't giving me results I trust I'll switch to some modern methods.

If you like doing it yourself, check out the Barrowman Equations for stability. (Here's the original paper.) You can do them by hand if you want to go old-school, but you should at least have an idea of your rocket's stability before you launch, even if you don't design with stability in mind. If you get bored doing them by hand, you can also make an spreadsheet to do the calculations for you.

So far I've been doing the rope stability test but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Does any one know?

Other challenges
Design your own helicopter rocket. Don't base it on an existing design
Design your own glider
Same for multistage, cluster, and multistage cluster
Try mixing up your clusters, with one lower stage motor and multiple upper stages. Try a single booster with MULTIPLE sustainer upper stages
Try horizontal spin recovery (not aware of a kit that does that, but the reeeeeaaaal old farts here probably will correct me)
Try backslider recovery

I watched your videos and I like how you are approaching your rocketry project. You are identifying solving your problems on your own rather than running for help at the first obstacle.

Here is a link to an old Estes publication that has a lot of information and a few plans including a wind tunnel. https://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/EstesModelRocketry/mr_spaceagehobby.html

mbecks said:

So far I've been doing the rope stability test but I'm not sure how accurate that is. Does any one know?

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Swing Testing has been around since the beginning of the hobby. It is a very conservative but accurate lateral stability test. it is most adventageous to have the nose of the model down about 5 to 10 degrees at the start of the test. This gives a little extra margin to the test. There are some designs that just will not swing test due mostly to asymmetry but there are others as well.

I strongly suggest getting your hands on a copy of G. Harry Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry" it will answer tons of the questions you should have about all your models. Any edition is just fine.

Canada has most of the same restrictions and flying safety conditions as we do in the lower 48. I Still suggest downloading a copy of the Model Rocket Sport Code (Pink Book) if your looking for doable "challenges" for you rocketry endeavors. Scratch building is lots of fun but if you have a few basic air-frame "Standards" to base your building on you should enjoy a much greater margin of success. Motor mounts & Shock-cords attachment along with the proper recovery system will make your models more fun to build and much safer in flight.

mkadams001 said:

I watched your videos and I like how you are approaching your rocketry project. You are identifying solving your problems on your own rather than running for help at the first obstacle.

Here is a link to an old Estes publication that has a lot of information and a few plans including a wind tunnel. https://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/EstesModelRocketry/mr_spaceagehobby.html

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Thanks for the encouragement. I've been getting a lot more flack on this site for not first running a bunch of sim tests and for not reading a pile of info so it was very nice to here someone say that they like my approach. I'll check out the site thanks.


edit: just checked out the site, what a great book, I wonder if I can get a copy locally!

mbecks said:

Thanks for the encouragement. I've been getting a lot more flack on this site for not first running a bunch of sim tests and for not reading a pile of info so it was very nice to here someone say that they like my approach. I'll check out the site thanks.


edit: just checked out the site, what a great book, I wonder if I can get a copy locally!

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Well, I am one of oddballs on this forum because I like flying by the seat of my pants. Sim software is great but so is "mind" sim. I started flying rockets in the 60's. We built rockets, mostly estes, and had a lot of fun. I have never seen a copy of the The Rocketry Handbook, in fact I never knew it existed until a few years ago. There are so many resources on the web it makes it easy to find the information you need. Except for forums, these places can cause more confusion than provide a straight answer.

So, keep up the good work, I see the fun you are having. Safety wise, watch out for fires caused by your rocket from unstable flights. I have seen that happen too many times (from kit rockets at club launches). They seem to attracted to the driest brush in the area.

There is a PDF link for that book on the site. It is in the first sentence. You might find a printed copy on eBay but it is pretty old. I have a copy from the 60's.