This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Rockets - Dawn 'til dusk

We had a very busy rocket day yesterday with our regular NSWRA launch at Doonside from early morning until noon, and then in the evening we had our NSWRA display at the Macquarie University Astronomy open night. We had lots and lots of people come up and ask questions about rocketry, and I'm sure there will be a few people that will come to the launches as a result of it. I'd say close to a couple of hundred people came to look at the display and have a chat. We had the G2 on display as well. I didn't get home until after 11:30pm last night.


I'll write up a full flight report and info about the Uni display in the next few days.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

NSWRA at Mac Uni Astronomy Open Night

NSWRA (NSW Rocketry Association) is going to have a stall at the Macquarie University Astronomy Open Night this weekend Saturday October 29th from 6:30pm. If you want to find out more about rocketry and haven't had a chance to come to one of our NSWRA launches at Doonside, then why not stop by and have a chat.

There will be a number of NSWRA members to talk to. We'll be there as well for a part of the night.

Find out more here:
http://www.nswrocketry.org.au/PublicPages/Public_Mac_Uni_Open_Night.html

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

So how big is The Shadow?

Now that we have most of the components made, we are in the process of assembling them into the actual rocket. Here is a picture of the pressure chamber with payload bay and nosecone fitted on top. The entire rocket is 2580mm tall (~8.5 feet).


 I've added some more progress photos from the last week of construction here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_151011

There is still lots to do on this rocket, but it's good to see it finally in context so that we can finish designing the launcher and figure out how we fill it with water and launch it. We're hoping to assemble the pressure chamber over the next week and pressure test it. For the pressure test we are going to need to finish the launcher, as it will be the only thing that will seal against the nozzle.

Otherwise progress on other projects is on the back burner for now as my regular daytime work has been extra busy lately.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Shadow progress update

We've been busy this week making good progress on The Shadow. We now have a new set of fin guides that will be used to align the fins. We made a new coupler mandrel and have made a number of fiberglass couplers for joining tubes. We also started working on the business end of the rocket today and machined the nozzle and the nozzle seat it will sit on. We are having to build a completely new launcher for this rocket to handle the higher pressures.

Updates from the last several days are here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_270911

(NOTE: You may need to refresh the page as sometimes it gets cached and you won't see the updates.)

Nozzle seat and nozzle

 Fin guides to align fins