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Epic Water-Rockets Take Flight

Inq

Inq

Elite member
Jesse Dupreez said:
I would love one of those Raspberry Pi Zero-W With a cam.............
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It looks like you have something on the rocket taking pictures. What are you using?

Also, what are you using for a nozzle / hold-down mechanism? It looks a whole lot simpler and effective... and I'm a firm believer in the scientific/engineering - KISS principle! :sneaky:
 
Inq

Inq

Elite member
MacClarkNC said:
Jesse, how did you deploy the parachute. We have kids around doing science olympiad that cannot use a powered device to deploy.
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The students in our school couldn't either. They used various nose cones including a second cut 2L bottle reversed, poster board shaped into a cone and even a traffic cone. All were loosely placed on top of the rocket after it was installed on the launcher. They just toppled off at apogee and parachute falls out. Very few didn't deploy and the ones that didn't tended to be when kids wanted a huge parachute that had to be "packed" in the cone. If it was loose, it always fell out and deployed. Tight fitting (to rocket) cones wouldn't work either. I think only one deployed during the boost phase. We concluded it was because the cone wasn't truly axis-symmetric and thus had unequal forces on it pushed it off early.
 
Jesse Dupreez

Jesse Dupreez

Active member
Inq said:
The launch pad worked well. It was one of early uses of a 3D printer and it was WAY overbuilt on thickness (3 mm). I didn't have a good feel back then. You could probably beat on it with a sledge hammer. Large spikes driven into the ground would hold it down. The rocket hold down arms (purple) pivot on the steel shafts seen in the picture above and are geared to each other so pulling on one with a string causes the other to also move outward releasing the green two-liter rocket. Standard PVC piping handled all the pressure duties. The 3D printed plastic just held things in place.
View attachment 234078



Although I printed a few nozzles (not the aerospike) I never got around to figuring out how to hold down and seal the rocket with a nozzle to the launch pad. It was a TBD! :ROFLMAO: Fortunately, COVID saved me.
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The launcher that i use is a Gardena fitting with a Gardena tap connector epoxied on to a bottle cap
 
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Jesse Dupreez

Jesse Dupreez

Active member
Inq said:
It looks like you have something on the rocket taking pictures. What are you using?

Also, what are you using for a nozzle / hold-down mechanism? It looks a whole lot simpler and effective... and I'm a firm believer in the scientific/engineering - KISS principle! :sneaky:
Click to expand...
I was using a 808 keying camera/808 car keys camera

download (4).jpg

I put it in my mini scout
But then it lost signal and nose plummeted from a very high alt,
the can is no longer working ......:cry:
Plus I don't have money for another one right now.
 
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Jesse Dupreez

Jesse Dupreez

Active member
MaxTheFliteFreak said:
I also had a period during my childhood when I was obsessed with water rockets, but I didn't know much about them at the time and my building skills weren't nearly as good as they are now, and so i didn't have a release mechanism or any good way of launching it. What I had was a cork, zipties, tape and a bycycle valve and hand pump. Since I didn't have a release mechanism, I had to hold the rocket down with my hand and pump with the other, or just wait for the rocket to gain enough pressure to lift off. I also had no way of knowing how much air was in the rocket so it was always a waiting game. I had a lot of fun though and learnt some neat little things along the way.
Happy flying!
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if you want to make a water rocket and launcher watch this video
 
Piotrsko

Piotrsko

Master member
If you use a truck tire rubber valve stem shoved into a standard sized bottle neck, they auto fire off around 60psi pretty reliably, just bubble into the bottle safely until that 60. Did boy scouts and 4th grade science lab using a cheap foot powered tire pump for about 200 launches until the foot pump wore out.
 
Jesse Dupreez

Jesse Dupreez

Active member
Piotrsko said:
If you use a truck tire rubber valve stem shoved into a standard sized bottle neck, they auto fire off around 60psi pretty reliably, just bubble into the bottle safely until that 60. Did boy scouts and 4th grade science lab using a cheap foot powered tire pump for about 200 launches until the foot pump wore out.
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But you can't get to choose at what presser it launchers at.
 
Piotrsko

Piotrsko

Master member
With a hundred hyper-excited kids doing God knows what, 100psi launches is the last thing you want. However a simple hold latch will get you there. Consider 100psi to be more or less the max the cheapest bottles will hold and you never know if the bottle was creased in some way. Btdt, got wet. Btw proper Coke or pepsi bottles will go to 300 psi. My compresser craps out at 200.
 
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