What did you do rocket wise today?

[jqavins]

Hmm. I thought about leaving out the blocking cap for exactly the reason you stated. But then, there would be an average flex in the disc; it wouldn't effect the electronics but it would effect the mechanics. Enough to matter? I'll try bypassing it and see how much difference that makes. As for the impedance being too low for the op amp, I doubt that will happen, but I'm not sure. The frequency is rather low so the disc acting as a cap shouldn't pass much current; but then, I haven't checked. I did think about adding an emitter follower or something, but then, again, this isn't the chip I really want to use in the end anyway so there's no point going overboard.

 

[teepot]

Does a gyroscope count? I clearly remember playing with one of those, circa 1967 ish. I think every kid in America got one of those for Christmas, they were all the rage!


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I had one of those. I'm surprised I remembered it. I got it at a museum in Detroit. I got one of the things that are a glass globe with a spinner that would spin in sun light too. Memory is amazing. I can remember something from 55 years ago. But not doctors appointments next week.

 

[lakeroadster]

I got one of the things that are a glass globe with a spinner that would spin in sun light too.

I remember going on a class trip to the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta Ohio in 1972, and was spellbound with one of those.
________________________________________________________________

I spent some time fabricating the rear threaded closure for my 2" pvc launch silo. Also flight prepped THUNK and The Cygnus Probe. With any luck we'll get a launch in on Tuesday or Wednesday. Also planning another launch of the F-79 with the new reinforced over the top parachutes.

 

[Hobie1dog]

got a picture from my SIL who got my rocket painted at his body shop;
BMW San Marino Blue

 

[rharshberger]

got a picture from my SIL who got my rocket painted at his body shop;
BMW San Marino Blue

Beautiful color!

 

[NateB]

I epoxied fin 1 of 6 in place on my 3" Darkstar.

 

[tsmith1315]

got a picture from my SIL who got my rocket painted at his body shop;
BMW San Marino Blue

Beautiful, Marty! Beautiful.

Too bad you can't put a set of Shelby 10-spoke rims on that.

 

[teepot]

I was going to paint the spiny rocket. But we had some rain today. Not much. But when it rains the humidity goes thru the roof. It's 75* with 74% humidity. It was higher earlier. Hope it's overcast tomorrow. If the sun comes out we will swelter. It feels like Florida outside. Maybe I'll get to paint tomorrow.

 

[OverTheTop]

Got RockSim to output the radial and longitudinal moments of inertia for my Velociraptor I am using to test the Vertical Trajectory System.
Radial: 0.0204 kg.m2
Longitudinal: 2.98 kg.m2
About a factor of 146 difference.

No wonder rockets are so twitchy in the roll axis. Really easy to overcook the gains and end up with oscillations, especially at the high-speed phase of flight. Even with the shortened lever arm in roll (for the canards) it is easy to overestimate the gain just using intuition.

Now I am going to try calculating or estimating control loop gains for the flight computer.

If I am feeling confident I might even try to get some feed-forward working .

 

[scotte]

My 5 year old is out of camp this week so I decided to surprise him and make it "Rocket Camp" week for he and I. Today we finally launched the Estes Space Crater that we bought months ago, and we went 3 for 3 on successful launches. 1st was the break-in launch, which went fine. 2nd was the first one with the egg in the payload, and it went as perfectly as I could have hoped. 3rd had the same egg in the payload, but this time it left the launch rod and started a ballistic-style trajectory in nearly the opposite direction of the previous. Thankfully it deployed successfully and once again the egg was recovered intact. But this one also melted the chute a touch, so that will need to be replaced. Thankfully, though, that was our final planned launch for the day so we could walk away successful.

I'd nearly forgotten how fun the low power side of rocketry can be, especially with young kids. He had a fantastic time, so I did too. Tomorrow we build - he wisely chose the Wizard over the Alpha. I'm looking forward to flying that one on Wednesday! I also need to choose a new "novelty" rocket to build Thursday and fly Friday. Something that's simple enough to build in a day, but does something unique or interesting. All ideas are welcome

 

[BrendanH69]

F/Glassed and then bagged up the third fin for the Tin Tin rocket. Trial fitted the first fin into the boat tail fin can after opening the slot a bit more for the new fin root thickness.

According to the books, it was just called "The Moon Rocket". Thinking of calling it "Cuthbert Calculus' Moon Rocket"

 

[HoldYourOwn]

Finished putting stickers on the 3" PML Bull puppy..

 

[Hobie1dog]

Finished putting stickers on the 3" PML Bull puppy..View attachment 529557

That turned out very nice, thanks for the picture.

 

[jqavins]

My 5 year old is out of camp this week so I decided to surprise him and make it "Rocket Camp" week for he and I. Today we finally launched the Estes Space Crater that we bought months ago, and we went 3 for 3 on successful launches. 1st was the break-in launch, which went fine. 2nd was the first one with the egg in the payload, and it went as perfectly as I could have hoped. 3rd had the same egg in the payload, but this time it left the launch rod and started a ballistic-style trajectory in nearly the opposite direction of the previous. Thankfully it deployed successfully and once again the egg was recovered intact. But this one also melted the chute a touch, so that will need to be replaced. Thankfully, though, that was our final planned launch for the day so we could walk away successful.

I'd nearly forgotten how fun the low power side of rocketry can be, especially with young kids. He had a fantastic time, so I did too. Tomorrow we build - he wisely chose the Wizard over the Alpha. I'm looking forward to flying that one on Wednesday! I also need to choose a new "novelty" rocket to build Thursday and fly Friday. Something that's simple enough to build in a day, but does something unique or interesting. All ideas are welcome

Wacky Wiggler, Odd'l's Break Away, or the like. There is no way that break-apart recover can fail to be a kid pleaser.

If you can't find one, you could make your own kit by taking a simple 3/4FNC kit plus a pack of couplers, and cutting up the body tube today so it's ready for the build session with the kid tomorrow. You'd need to provide your own long tether string and work out a way to secure it to each segment; that's not too hard.

(Hmm, maybe I'll make an F/G powered 3" version.)

 

[Back_at_it]

Finally finished the vinyl on my rebuilt Bullet. After a water landing a few weeks back I rebuilt this one with all new internals. Finally got to install the vinyl last night

 

[scotte]

Wacky Wiggler, Odd'l's Break Away, or the like. There is no way that break-apart recover can fail to be a kid pleaser.

If you can't find one, you could make your own kit by taking a simple 3/4FNC kit plus a pack of couplers, and cutting up the body tube today so it's ready for the build session with the kid tomorrow. You'd need to provide your own long tether string and work out a way to secure it to each segment; that's not too hard.

(Hmm, maybe I'll make an F/G powered 3" version.)

This is an amazing idea - completely forgot about ultralight recovery in general but had never even seen these models. He'd love these! None of my local stores have a wiggler in stock though, so I ordered one. And in the same spirit I managed to snag some other rockets locally: a Hex 3, a Double Ringer, and a tiny ultralight whose name I can't remember. Unfortunately, the store that would have had a Quinstar and a Blender kit is closed for the week, so those will have to be next time. I really wanted to roll my own but I didn't have time to think through how I would handle the tether. Securing is easy, but I'm not sure how I'd handle fire resistance as I don't have any kevlar on hand. Anyhow, thanks for the inspiration. My son is gonna love this

 

[Old School Doug]

Planning for our premier club launch of the year next month. Have a couple ideas noodling around and one built, paint drying and awaiting decals. Beyond that, I'm in the process of taking my Exocet and repurposing most of it into a new rocket. She was real pretty but a temperamental flyer that never found true stability after 3 tries.

 

[Hobie1dog]

got my Level-2 rocket back and on my desk so that I can get it ready for the Freedom Launch on Labor day

 

[lakeroadster]

Launched 4 oddrocs today... and came home with all 4 undamaged. Pretty awesome day.

Thunk!, Ahpla, F-79 Lonewolf and The Cygnus Probe Ship

 

[Swany]

Finished the LED payload section for my "Genesis" night flyer.

 

[NateB]

I'm determined to finish what I have so far for my fleet of Darkstars this year. I mounted the remaining 2 fins on the lower finset on my 3" Darkstar. I also changed my plans for my minimum diameter mini AKA Darkstar Nemesis. I pulled the internal retainer and filled 2 of the holes with epoxy, leaving the third as a vent. I can friction mount the motors with the harness secured to an eye bolt on the forward closure. This gives me more options with my snap ring cases and floating forward closures so it is easier to remove the motor without removing the entire retainer.

 

[tsmith1315]

Finished the LED payload section for my "Genesis" night flyer.

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I have a case of nosecone envy!

 

[Jerry F.]

I epoxied fin 1 of 6 in place on my 3" Darkstar.

The 3” DarkStar is my planned choice for my 1st FG kit….

 

[NateB]

The 3” DarkStar is my planned choice for my 1st FG kit….

Good choice! The Wildman kits are fun to build. If you haven't already, look for the stickied 3" Darkstar build thread for good instructions.

My first fiberglass kit was a Wild Child. Since then I have built several Darkstars. I'm building the 3" to be versatile with standard dual deploy and HED with just the booster, AV Bay and Nosecone like the Punisher kits.

 

[Jerry F.]

Wacky Wiggler, Odd'l's Break Away, or the like. There is no way that break-apart recover can fail to be a kid pleaser.

If you can't find one, you could make your own kit by taking a simple 3/4FNC kit plus a pack of couplers, and cutting up the body tube today so it's ready for the build session with the kid tomorrow. You'd need to provide your own long tether string and work out a way to secure it to each segment; that's not too hard.

(Hmm, maybe I'll make an F/G powered 3" version.)

I just did this exact build…the Wacky Wiggler from scratch…you can find the WW instructions online to give you some ideas…but a 5-6 ft chunk of Kevlar wrapped around your mmt then tie a knot/small loop about 12” up, then I glued a 1/2” piece of 1/8” launch lug inside of each of the couplers to feed the Kevlar through (needed to tie a knot and added a clasp end from a small zip tie so it wouldn’t pull through the LL), then repeated for each section…
Haven’t had an opportunity to try it out yet…

Also, the Vortico’s are fun “odd rocs” to fly and easy to build…

 

[teepot]

Was going to try and paint the spiny rocket tonight. It's 9:30pm and it is 82* and 74% freaking humidity. Monsoon season has come about 3 weeks early.

 

[Cape Byron]

Something, for a change.

Started the 'Stage Zero' booster for the Yalga kit. Staging on a C6-0 C6-5 combination gives staging at about 200 feet and a sustainer altitude of 1080 feet.

I want to be able to use it with built Yalga kits as an add on, so a little noodling required.

Fins being papered and tubes cut as we speak. Or type. Whatever.

 

[Five]

Nice and tidy!

Thank you

 

[Five]

Was going to try and paint the spiny rocket tonight. It's 9:30pm and it is 82* and 74% freaking humidity. Monsoon season has come about 3 weeks early.

I never tried to paint when it’s humid. I assume it’s probably not a good idea. With that being said, Im very impatient when it comes to rockets so I would probably end trying to do it anyway. Haha

 

[1904 hank]

Finished the LED payload section for my "Genesis" night flyer.

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Looks amazing.