Brainstorming:
We had brainstormed some ideas on the types of cone tips we will be using and in order to determine the best one we had all given the shapes a rating on how realistic it would be to make the shape and then we used solidworks to determine the drag coefficients of each tip. Below the spider diagram we came up with all the feasible designs.
Research:
(1) http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/aerodynamics/q0151.shtml
We found this website indicating that the best nose cone to use for a water bottle rocket would be a parabola shaped cone but we noticed that the shape would be difficult to make using the materials we have and so we decided to test the drag of the shapes ourselves. The website gave us great insight on which shapes we should use and which aren’t even worth simulating.
(2) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336345689_CFD_analysis_of_drag_force_for_different_nose_cone_design
Another study here showed that the drag force at higher speeds was greater with the conical nose cone than the parabolic however, we will not be reaching such high speeds and therefore decided that the difference would be neglegable at the speed we plan to use the rocket.
Findings:
Next we did some simulations on the drag coefficients on each of the cones. Once we had figured out the drag coefficients of the tips we decided to run some simulations on how the tips would perform under a 3 m/s wind against them, determining how much drag there would be visually
We found that at a wind speed of 3m/s the conical shape had more drag force on the rocket but not enough to make a big difference in practise and therefore to finally choose what cone to use we made a rating table including all of the old designs too.
(The higher the rating the better)
| Cone Type | Practicality | Usefulness | Looks | Total Score |
| Flat tip | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Pointy cone (w indents) | 3 | 4 | 6 | 13 |
| No Cone | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Pointy cone | 6 | 5 | 5 | 16 |
| Parabola shaped cone | 4 | 6 | 4 | 14 |
| Bi-Conic Cone | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 |
From this we could see that using a simple pointy cone design would be best as it is very useful and we could make the shape with ease meaning the kit would be simpler to use.
Next we did some simulations on the drag coefficients on each of the cones. Once we had figured out the drag coefficients of the tips we decided to run some simulations on how the tips would perform under a 3 m/s wind against them, determining how much drag there would be visually