Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

After the progress that we made last week we had so much to go off for this week. This meant that we were looking to improve these initial designs and try to make more decisions about the rockets overall design. The highlights this week were:

  • We familiarised ourselves with a program called Open Rocket so we can can work out where the CP and CG will sit within the rocket – this will help us to work out whether the rocket will be stable when flying
  • We decided that we would release our rocket using a pull wire mechanism and that we will be using a parachute to make it safer when the rocket falls back down
  • We have also got a bottle size and type that we have decided to use so we can begin to use those dimensions in the various CAD designs
  • We had look at what other materials we might need to purchase to make some prototypes of the rockets so we can experiment with fin shapes and make sure that the release mechanism will work

This picture above shows a design made using Open Rocket with the CG in front of the CP.

So it begins…

We have had just one week together as a team and already so much progress has been made! Some of the highlights from this week are:

  • We sorted out some general admin – arranged regular meetings, decided how we will communicate with each other and some basic roles
  • We chose as a group to make this an education package
  • Lots of research has been conducted by the whole team, ranging from various bottle shapes to how a parachute could be deployed using gravity or electronics
  • We have even had a couple initial design ideas made on SolidWorks