$2500 Budget Senior Design Project.... Ideas?

[wtfemery]

I'm in the preliminary stages of my senior design project. We're split into 2 groups. 3 of us (including me) are designing the booster, and 4 others are designing an autonomous drone payload. We have a $2500 budget ($1250 each) but we are restricted by NAR, FAA, and NFPA guidelines for model rocketry (125g max propellant) and can only use A through F size engines. Everything else is free-game.

I'm looking for ideas to make our project unique and to somehow utilize our whole budget. How the heck do we spend $1250 on a booster with only a handful of size E or F engines?

Let's say our payload will be 1lb. What's the best configuration to reach the highest altitude? Is 5000ft possible? What's a reasonable payload diameter?

Obviously we're going to be messing around with a sim and see how different configurations would work, but right now we're just brainstorming.

If you had $1250 to blow on a mid-power rocket booster, what would you do?

 

[dhbarr]

1000g payload only leaves 500g for the rest of the project incl. propellant if you're required to stay as a FAR101 Model Rocket. Maybe 3x F25W cluster?

Maybe set aside some of the overall funding for repeated test flights.

 

[cerving]

You'll be surprised how fast motors can eat up a budget, even if they're only $25 each. And no way you're going to reach 5,000' with three F's on a 1.5 kg rocket. Trimming weight should be your first priority.

 

[wtfemery]

You'll be surprised how fast motors can eat up a budget, even if they're only $25 each. And no way you're going to reach 5,000' with three F's on a 1.5 kg rocket. Trimming weight should be your first priority.

Noted. We have access to the composites lab so we could go pretty light with everything. I was just going off the project guidelines which sets a payload weight limit of 0.5kg for the other team

 

[Arpak]

Man what I would've done to get a budget like that on a senior project, my uni made us find a sponsor or self fund it

 

[Sooner Boomer]

I'm in the preliminary stages of my senior design project. We're split into 2 groups. 3 of us (including me) are designing the booster, and 4 others are designing an autonomous drone payload.

What's a "drone"? Is it a quadcopter (or hexcopter)? The Okla. State U. team won the Argonia Cup Challange in '21 by using an autonomous drone glider. The nose of the rocket was the nose of the glider. The team that came in second (S.W. Okla. State U. - go Bulldogs!*) used a *piloted* quadcopter, which requires a bodytube large enough for the drone to fit in (I can't remember if it was 4" or 5"). Each of the teams had to submit a video as part of the process. Check out youtube; search for 2021 argonia cup videos There were some very creative ideas.

* full disclosure, I'm a technical advisor for Team SWOSU

 

[wtfemery]

What's a "drone"? Is it a quadcopter (or hexcopter)? The Okla. State U. team won the Argonia Cup Challange in '21 by using an autonomous drone glider. The nose of the rocket was the nose of the glider. The team that came in second (S.W. Okla. State U. - go Bulldogs!*) used a *piloted* quadcopter, which requires a bodytube large enough for the drone to fit in (I can't remember if it was 4" or 5"). Each of the teams had to submit a video as part of the process. Check out youtube; search for 2021 argonia cup videos There were some very creative ideas.

* full disclosure, I'm a technical advisor for Team SWOSU

We're not sure yet, but we were thinking of using a coaxial rotor design for the most stability after deployment. Like two opposing rotors up top (that maybe can be folded down during launch for the smallest possible diameter, then the motor beneath, then camera/telemetry/battery on the bottom. Our goal is to hover at or above apogee for 3+ minutes.

A glider-style design would need to be powered to maintain altitude and be cleverly folded up, but we're definitely considering that too.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

You've got some interesting design ideas! Please keep us informed of your progress!

 

[wtfemery]

What would be a reasonable MTOW for a triple F10 cluster? is the 5:1 rule for Max thrust or avg?

 

[cerving]

What would be a reasonable MTOW for a triple F10 cluster? is the 5:1 rule for Max thrust or avg?

Absolute minimum would be 3:1, 5:1 is better. It's going to be very difficult to do that with F10's given your design parameters.

 

[wtfemery]

Using Avg thrust though, right? Which is ~10.7N/engine, 32.1N total, divided by 5 leaving 6.42N or 1.44lbs/653g MTOW with a 5:1 ratio?

if the motors are about 215g, and we want our carbon fiber body to be about 200g, that leaves a little over 200g for the drone payload...

yeah, that would be pretty tough...

maybe we can bump it up to an F15 if we need to. I just love the long burn of the F10.

 

[dhbarr]

https://www.thrustcurve.org/motors/Estes/F15/Propellant weight 60g * 3 = not a Model Rocket

https://www.thrustcurve.org/motors/Apogee/F10/Propellant weight 40g * 3 = still a Model Rocket

 

[Voyager1]

What would be a reasonable MTOW for a triple F10 cluster? is the 5:1 rule for Max thrust or avg?

You would be better off simulating a few design options in Open Rocket or Rocksim using the F10 cluster, or any equivalent combination that stays under 125g of propellant. Be aware that the F10 has a total impulse of about 74 Ns, so 3 x 74 = 222 Ns. Typically, the total combined impulse limit for a model rocket is 160 Ns. With the F15 your total impulse is about 3 x 50 = 150 Ns, but you exceed the propellant weight limit. Might try 2 x F15s.

Whatever you try, it will be a challenge to get 5,000'!

 

[wtfemery]

You would be better off simulating a few design options in Open Rocket or Rocksim using the F10 cluster, or any equivalent combination that stays under 125g of propellant. Be aware that the F10 has a total impulse of about 74 Ns, so 3 x 74 = 222 Ns. Typically, the total combined impulse limit for a model rocket is 160 Ns. With the F15 your total impulse is about 3 x 50 = 150 Ns, but you exceed the propellant weight limit. Might try 2 x F15s.

Whatever you try, it will be a challenge to get 5,000'!

Oh, forgot there was a total impulse limit as well. Thanks, I'll keep weighing other options...

And yea, 5000ft is a long shot, I know. Honestly, if we hit 2000ft I'd be ecstatic.

 

[SparkyVT]

$2500!??? If that's going to be a normal budget each year and you are really interested in rocketry, then I recommend you look at either IREC or Argonia Cup. It probably too late to enter these this year, but maybe next year. A project combining drones and rocketry would be perfect for Argonia Cup. There are prizes, scholarships, and not to mention the networking and industry exposure that comes with each competition. Since both are collegiate competitions, it may be easier to get faculty to support an even bigger budget. Just my thoughts. (Full disclosure: I'm mentoring 3 teams this year at IREC).

 

[smstachwick]

You would be better off simulating a few design options in Open Rocket or Rocksim using the F10 cluster, or any equivalent combination that stays under 125g of propellant. Be aware that the F10 has a total impulse of about 74 Ns, so 3 x 74 = 222 Ns. Typically, the total combined impulse limit for a model rocket is 160 Ns. With the F15 your total impulse is about 3 x 50 = 150 Ns, but you exceed the propellant weight limit. Might try 2 x F15s.

Whatever you try, it will be a challenge to get 5,000'!

The limit is 160N-sec for single motors and 320N-sec for complex configurations. You can fly 2 Gs without certification so long as you’re within the other limits, but you can’t fly the equivalent H unless you’re certified or attempting certification.

3 F10s without certification is legal. 3 Estes F15s will exceed the propellant limit, 2 will be right on it.

Graphic from https://www.soarrocketry.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/HPR_metric9c.pdf

Realistically though, the limiting factor will be propellant every time. I’m not aware of a combination of “Level 0” motors that will exceed 320 N-sec without also exceeding 125 grams of total propellant.

 

[lakeroadster]

I'm looking for ideas to make our project unique and to somehow utilize our whole budget.

Why is utilizing the entire budget important?

What's the best configuration to reach the highest altitude? Is 5000ft possible? What's a reasonable payload diameter?

altitude, payload... yawn.

1st come up with a concept, then scale it based on budget. Keep it simple.

How about a silo launched finless rocket that uses Gas Dynamic Stabilization, with a ring finned booster that utilizes the Magnus Effect for recovery.

A couple projects I've got going, but with your budget it would be a great project combining the two and instrumenting it for data gathering.​

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[Bravo52]

Investigate new types of aero-shell deployments. There is a lot you can do with recovery (recoverable), shape, retaining after deployment...etc.

 

[boatgeek]

A couple of options:
A Do the drone thing but use the rocket as a booster to get the drone to altitude and then have the drone take it the rest of the way up. 2x G80 or G57 should get a light-ish 2.6” rocket well above 2000 feet, even with a payload.

B Do something now that builds for future projects. A steerable paraglider or Rogallo wing type chute under remote control this year, then next year’s team can add GPS guidance to it.

Don’t focus on spending all $2500. Save some for next year’s team unless they would lose funding because you didn’t spend it all. That kind of money is enough to compete at SLI or Spaceport America.