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Baby Bertha build. Got all he fins on, got the launch lug on, and got the engine mount assembled and painted. Unfortunately, one fin I glued about 1/8 of an inch lower than the others so its a little lopsided sitting on the ground.
 

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mjremijan said:
Baby Bertha build. Got all he fins on, got the launch lug on, and got the engine mount assembled and painted. Unfortunately, one fin I glued about 1/8 of an inch lower than the others so its a little lopsided sitting on the ground.
Click to expand...

I have to ask... why did you paint the motor mount? It's going to go up inside the rocket anyway. Either way, be sure to sand the paint off the outer edges of the rings so they don't get blocked from accepting glue.
 
mjremijan said:
Baby Bertha build. Got all he fins on, got the launch lug on, and got the engine mount assembled and painted. Unfortunately, one fin I glued about 1/8 of an inch lower than the others so its a little lopsided sitting on the ground.
Click to expand...
And I have to ask, are you going to cut the one fin off and fix it? I probably wouldn't in your shoes, but I'd agonize over it.

No, wait, actually, if I caught the mistake before the fillets went on then I probably would fix it.
 
I talked with my professor and my college design team about the possibility of making active stability canards as our capstone project. Got a word of hurt ahead of us I think...
 
Communist_Phil said:
I talked with my professor and my college design team about the possibility of making active stability canards as our capstone project. Got a word of hurt ahead of us I think...
Click to expand...
You may be right. :( Active stabilization, at least at a regional/national launch, is a bit questionable at this time. One of the important points that the national organizations make to the AHJ is that we fly UNguided rockets. The concern is the closeness of active stabilization techniques and hardware to active guidance techniques/hardware.

FWIW I saw an active-stabilization rocket (used a gimballed motor mount, if memory serves) about 25 years ago in High Power Rocketry magazine.

Best -- Terry
 
Update on the RC Apogee Condor: It flies nice when it's not the Red Baronest thing. Much better than the brick that I expected it to be.
 
Communist_Phil said:
I talked with my professor and my college design team about the possibility of making active stability canards as our capstone project. Got a word of hurt ahead of us I think...
Click to expand...
I think this would be a fun capstone project. Challenging & a ton of work, but fun. It'd be a good mix of controls, aerodynamics, structures, sensors, electronics & more. Joe Barnard is doing thrust-related control for his rockets. Jim Jarvis is working on aerodynamic surface control. Joe's stuff is mostly on YouTube and his website. Jim has at least one good thread here detailing his progress. There are probably others.

Looking through their work and designs of smaller missiles should be valuable. There are lots of potential gotchas in a project like this.

As with everything, the simulations you do will only be a starting point. You'll need good flight test data & time to iterate to get a workable solution. Finding the right place to fly will be a factor too (multiple FAR trips maybe - or a university waived airspace location?).

Good luck & have fun!
 
Communist_Phil said:
I talked with my professor and my college design team about the possibility of making active stability canards as our capstone project. Got a word of hurt ahead of us I think...
Click to expand...
There is quite a bit of complexity in the mathematics of this sort of control. See what you can learn from other people to help you along your path. There were the people mentioned above, and I have done some work down this path also, particularly the canard flight control.

Here is a link to a project I have in work currently:
https://forum.ausrocketry.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=6632There are more details on the servos and canards in the Mk1 version which you can find a link for in the above link.

It would have flown the Mk2 this year but covid still has us grounded. We are in our sixth lockdown. I am taking the opportunity to upgrade telemetry systems and make some general improvement in the relatively rough breadboard of the system, and also working towards an Automatic Antenna Tracker to follow the flight.
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GrouchoDuke said:
I think this would be a fun capstone project. Challenging & a ton of work, but fun. It'd be a good mix of controls, aerodynamics, structures, sensors, electronics & more. Joe Barnard is doing thrust-related control for his rockets. Jim Jarvis is working on aerodynamic surface control. Joe's stuff is mostly on YouTube and his website. Jim has at least one good thread here detailing his progress. There are probably others.

Looking through their work and designs of smaller missiles should be valuable. There are lots of potential gotchas in a project like this.

As with everything, the simulations you do will only be a starting point. You'll need good flight test data & time to iterate to get a workable solution. Finding the right place to fly will be a factor too (multiple FAR trips maybe - or a university waived airspace location?).

Good luck & have fun!
Click to expand...
We will absolutely be looking into both Jim and Joes stuff. I think I ran into a few of Joes videos on Youtube before. They have a lot of good information in them so definitely worth watching. As you alluded to there can be a lot of "gotchas" so any more information we can get and use to avoid these gotchas would be good to have and reference.

Thank you @OverTheTop for the link to the your project post, we will probably reference your post multiple times throughout our design process to avoid said "gotchas".

Also thanks to @prfesser, totally forgot about launch logistics. We'll have to work on figuring something out now.

It'll definitely be a fun project but i'm sure I will be ripping my hair out at a couple of points. Just part of the fun!
 
Communist_Phil said:
We will absolutely be looking into both Jim and Joes stuff.
Click to expand...
I think a stabilization system is the perfect project for college teams. There are a lot of diverse issues to consider, and it is a lot of fun. Just expect it to be a multi-year project. My thread on this subject is here:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/i-could-use-just-a-little-guidance.122042/
I have lots of videos of various flights. You can search Youtube for Jiminaus50 to find them, but this was a good one:



Jim
 
Boy, that's a tough act to follow. All I did was put the switches I soldered into rockets without switches. And I marveled at the great response my last build got. Thank you all.
 
I just started using epoxy rivets - great technique for bonding to plastic
 
Lee said:
Which cure rate epoxy are you using? 5, 15, slow cure 30 minute?
Click to expand...

I typically use JB weld, which is very slow cure (hours). Its sets up nice and smooth for fillets. I had previous experience with this product, so it was my first choice for rocketry.
 
The UPS man brought me a big old box of awesome from MAC Performance. It's a 75mm 4" Bolt, FWFG. I purchased a tailcone retainer as well as some other accoutrements. This is the first kit that I've had from MAC. It looks very nice. I just happen to have a spot available to build such a project.
Jim
 
I cursed cheap rattle can paint. I'll wait until I can find what I want before I'll make that mistake again.
 
I have been dusting rockets. Some of the rockets I'm donating to the club have been hanging from the ceiling for a couple of years and were they dusty. I was also pulling my lost rocket stickers with my name off of them and removing the names. I currently have 12 I have picked out to donate and some BMS school rockets to give out to kids. Should be fun. Some of the rockets are MPR and some are HPR.
 

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