Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Inventory: Robotics & Other

As you may already know, the BSEC's goals extend far beyond model rocketry. While we're not off to such an explosive start with our robotics program, we've had lots of fun -- the most fun of all, in fact -- with our potato gun.

What follows is a partial listing of our non-rocketry materials.

Toph Tucker

1 potato gun
1 beginner's LEGO MindStorms set
1 even more of a beginner's LEGO MindStorms set (virtually non-programmable)
1 robotic arm (unassembled; quite complex)

Peter Wilmot

Know-how, experience and some robotics magazines. Details to follow.

Vivek Pai

Enthusiasm and "neverending charm." :-) Details to follow.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Inventory: Rockets

Following the disappointment of last Friday's failed launch, I have re-evaluated our supplies. The club has actually inherited a fairly large supply of rocketry materials from its three co-founders. A partial list follows.

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Toph Tucker

2 fully built & waterproofed rockets (engine sizes A / B / C)
2 unbuilt rockets
2 unbuilt mini rockets
4 large launch pads (various stages of completion)
1 mini launch pad
5 "Electron Beam" electronic launch controllers
2 spare parachutes
2 paratrooper figures
3 launch rod caps (with wind streamers)
1 plain orange streamer
4 B6-4 engines
LOTS of wadding, plugs and manuals :)

Peter Wilmot

Lots of fun stuff. Unclear how much we'll be able to use. Details to follow. :)

Vivek Pai

At least two built standard-sized rockets. Details to follow.

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Wish List

While I have the four B6-4 engines -- that's roughly medium-sized, folks -- I do not have any igniters to go with them. That, of course, is an issue, and basically means that we can't use those engines until we get igniters for them.

Over Thanksgiving break I will be looking into some new acquisitions, possibly including additional engines/igniters, larger engines, and larger rocket kits. We hope to have a brief planning session before the break in order to decide what we want to get.

At some point in the future we hope to attempt a multi-stage rocket. Instead of enjoying only one thrust phase, multi-stage rockets drop their lower portion as they peak and begin another thrust phase. It would also be fun to see what we could do with larger rockets. I'm still bent on including a couple of small payloads: candy bags with parachutes and a small bunch of ants. (Why? Just because they'd survive! They fall slowly enough that, as long as we don't fly them into the upper atmosphere or kill them during launch, they'd make it down all right.)

Stay tuned, and be sure to email one of us if you have any suggestions.