Fifth Meeting: Dry Ice, Smashing a Monitor, Rocket Car and Feedback

Hiya y'all. Thanks for coming on Friday, if you did. It was fun. :) (Last meeting of 2006, too!) Vivek's going to try to get those videos online sometime in the near future.

We started off with some dry ice bombs. Our first one appeared to be a dud, which was a bit scary because you just know that the moment you give up and go to pick it up it'll blow up in your face. Fortunately, that didn't happen. :)

We had several more successful dry ice bombs after that. We also tried burning flour and making bottles of hairspray into flamethrowers and so on. But the real fun was just beginning. (If you've come a lot you'll notice that our meetings tend to start off slow and really pick up towards the end.)

Michael Firer had donated an old broken PC monitor for us to, uh, break even more. At first we tried using the potato gun, but we only got one glancing shot in and then the potato gun decided to, well, stop working. So naturally, we took the biggest, heaviest metal pole we could find, and just smashed it. A lot. Over and over and over again. We tried putting some dry ice bombs inside, but that didn't work so well.

Finally, we decided to re-try a rocket car, since the rocket dune-buggy went a total of, um, 5 feet? Brenden Hickey had recently participated in a 9th Grade Physics Class mousetrap car competition. Obviously, a rocket engine provides a bit more thrust than the spring of a mousetrap. So we strapped on four. You'll have to wait for the video to see just what happened, but suffice it to say it was spectacular. :)

Now for a few thanks:

- Mr. McKinney, for getting the dry ice for us
- Vivek for filming everything
- Michael Firer for donating his old PC monitor, poor thing
- Everyone who cleaned up the remains of said monitor
- Ms. Nickerson, Peter, and Vivek for doing extra cleanup
- Brendan Hickey for donating his car & David Arbeiter for spiffing it up with a few nice rocket engines
- And whoever took attendance at the LAST meeting, not this one (I know, the thanks are kind of late)

And now for some feedback. So far this year in the club we've done all sorts of things, but we haven't really put a lot of time into any single project. What does everyone think about that? We don't want to go too slowly, because then it gets boring. But we don't want to go too fast, because then we can never do any big projects. I feel like we might be rushing through things a bit too much at the moment.

So: is there any project people want to spend some more time on? If you don't want to answer this little mini-survey you don't have to, but we'd love to get people's input. We're open to ANYTHING. So: what do you want to do? Rank the following from first (you really want to do it) to last (you couldn't care less):

- Hovercraft (big project)
- Egg Launch Contest (big project - try to launch eggs in rockets and return them to the ground unharmed)
- Model Car Contest (compete for fastest, farthest distance, etc.)
- Glider/Model Plane/Flying Things Contest (longest flight time, fastest, highest, etc.)
- Building Circuits
- Rube Goldberg Machines Contest (you know--the ball rolls down the ramp and starts the dominos, the dominos trip a wire that releases a bowling ball, the bowling ball knocks over a vase that yanks a weight off a table, the weight falls on a button that launches a rocket - that sort of thing)
- More Coke & Mentos
- More Dry Ice
- More shooting the potato gun at stuff
- More rockets

Any other comments? Anything else you'd like to add to the list?

Fourth Meeting: Potato Gun and Target

Today we shot a target with the potato gun. A lot. At least, we tried a lot. :)

But first we tried launching little match rockets... and we kinda failed. That was pretty, uh, experimental... as in, I had never done it before and barely even knew how to do it. Well, it engaged a lot of people for much of the club block, so apparently there was something interesting about it. Or maybe it was just the matches.

(UPDATE: Willy tells me they gave up on the match rockets and just made a giant match instead. So it was just the matches. Guys, you should have soaked the paper towl in hairspray. It would've been a lot easier to catch on fire.)

Once Vivek returned with a camera we set up the target, leaving a few people behind still playing with the matches. Craig, marksman extraordinaire (he alone hit the improvised target of 'a bag' in our first meeting) took the first shot... and it was a good one. The wood immediately cracked, and the bracing boards on the back popped right off. (One of those boards would soon become the match group's giant match.)

Our next few shots weren't so successful. For the first time, we had two potato guns operating simultaneously. We never got to shoot them at the same time - Ms. Nickerson wouldn't let us (no clue why) - but it made things go much more quickly. We soon branched out from our normal potato ammunition and threw some yogurt and pudding into the mix. Our first few shots missed, but we got some good ones in there. Craig also made a triumphant return, this time punching a hole straight through the target.

Emily closed off with a very nice bulls-eye, splattering pudding all over. That was the last of our hits - we only had three - and the only one to really splatter stuff on the board. On most shots, we pretty much just splattered the makeshift "road" to the construction site.

We closed off by talking a bit about our plans for the future. We all agree that the next meeting should be dedicated to just blowing stuff up, plain and simple. But what comes after that? Building radios? Steam-powered boats? Rocket planes? Speak up! We need your feedback!

Safety First! A Few Guidelines

A year ago, at our third club meeting ever, I was bracing the potato gun against my side when we fired it. Today at our fourth club meeting of the year, Jason was doing pretty much the same thing. Every other potato gun launch we've ever done has been perfectly fine. But these two times, we got a pair of holes in our shirt. Why? And how can you prevent it? (HINT: it's very easy and totally reliable.)

Potato Gun Safety

1. Never walk in front of the potato gun while it's primed and loaded. Actually, I'd avoid walking in front of it any time it's being used. If you do have to walk in front, be sure the person holding it AND the person holding the ignition switch know you're there.
2. If you're holding the igniter, NEVER go until the chamber lid is firmly on. Wait until after the person who screwed it on takes his or her hand away. Willy got burned once because someone jumped the gun and clicked too soon.
3. And here's the one Jason and I have to pay attention to. Notice where the two wires from the igniter go through the PVC and into the chamber. See the two little holes? Jason and I got burned because we had them facing towards us. Normally its not a problem, because most of our potato guns have those holes epoxied. (Epoxy is that super-strong glue stuff.) If the holes are epoxied, you're perfectly safe. Don't worry at all. We've done this dozens of times, if not hundreds. If you can't tell whether or not there's any epoxy (think glue) around the holes, tell one of the club presidents or a teacher. But as long as you keep the holes facing away from you, you'll be completely fine. It's a very very small flame coming out of there, and it only goes for an instant.

Rockets

1. Don't be near the rocket when it fires. If you're launching it, stand as far back as the wire length will allow. If you're not launching it, stand even farther back.
2. Don't stand behind the rocket, or downwind of it. You'll get a mouthful of yucky yucky smoke. It's not really dangerous, but it's yucky.
3. Never try igniting the engine with anything other than the electronic igniter.

Other than that, don't do anything dumb. When in doubt, ask a teacher. Or me. Or Peter. Or Vivek.

Using the Potato Gun and Launching Rockets: A Few Tips

When you have thirty kids running around begging for pudding, sometimes it can be hard to give them all good instructions. These are a few tips that will help us get the most out of our meetings.

The Potato Gun
Nobody Likes a Misfire

Today at our fourth club meeting we did a ton of potato gun firing. We did have quite a few misfires, though - that is, times when the potato gun just didn't fire. There were also a few misses, although our aim was fairly good. In any case, here are a few tips for being a potato gun expert.

AIMING: If you want...

• Maximum Distance: Hold the potato gun at a 45-degree angle.
• Maximum Height: Hold the potato gun straight up, of course! :)
• To Hit Something: If you're relatively close - say, half the width of the Lower Field - you should pretty much aim straight at the target. Aim a little bit up, but probably not more than 10 or (at most, if you're, say, all the way accross the Lower Field) 15 degrees. This one will just take practice.

POWER: How do I get the most?

• We haven't yet done a lot of testing, but there's a perfect amount of hair spray to spray. We've found that 4 seconds works quite well.
• Also, choose a nice big potato - bigger than the barrel. Use the sharpened edge of the barrel to cut it down to size. Try to avoid ANY air gaps on any side of the potato.

MISFIRES: Why do they happen, and how do you prevent it?

• The potato gun will not fire if you have too little or too much hair spray in the chamber.
• NOTE: More hair spray does NOT always mean it'll go farther! There's an optimal ration of air to fuel. If there's too much fuel and not enough air in the chamber, it won't ignite.
• SO: don't spray too much! (That's a lot more common than spraying too little.) It it won't fire, wait! Air out the chamber.
• Note that sometimes, misfires are out of your control. Sometimes a wire is loose or unplugged or broken or something like that. But 98% of misfires are thanks to having a bad air-to-fuel ratio.

DUDS: Why did the potato just softly plop out of the barrel?

• Again, there is an optimal ratio of air to fuel. If you have just a little too much or too little hair spray, the potato may not go very far.
• Also, the potato needs a good seal in the barrel. That is, it should fit very snugly, and give a good deal of resistance when you shove it down the barrel. Otherwise, all those explosive gasses can just escape out the gaps around the potato instead of launching the potato.
• SO: spray for about four seconds. (It's probably worth experimenting a bit with the exact timing.) Don't have too long a countdown - three seconds will do it.

Rockets
Push the button HARD

Rockets are, in some ways, a lot simpler to launch than is a potato gun to shoot. You don't need to optimize this or that. But it is a longer process. Here are the steps:

PREPARE THE ROCKET (note: I won't be too detailed about actually making the rocket.)

• When your rocket body is all assembled, crumple up three or four pieces of fireproof wadding and stuff them down the body tube.
• Attach the parachute, fold it up and put it into the body tube.
• Take the bottom of the rocket off and put in the engine. Put the bottom back on.
• Stick the black end of an igniter (the little metal wires split like a weird V) into the hole in the bottom of the engine. Secure it with one of those little plastic plugs - the things that look like thumb tacks. Bend the wires out to either side.

ON THE LAUNCH PAD

• If there's no wind, keep the launch rod aiming straight up. If there's wind, tilt it slightly into the wind.
• Slide the rocket down the launch rod. Try to suspend it off the metal disc an inch or two, e.g. by wrapping the rod in tape at that point. (The tape part isn't necessary, but helps.)
• To test it, take the the black box (electronic control box thingy) and clip the ends of the wires together. Put the key in the hole and press down hard. If the light lights up, you're good to go. Otherwise, you need new batteries.
• Clip the wires from the control box to the two wires of the igniter on the bottom of the rocket. Keep the clips from touching any other metal.
• Walk as far away as you can with the control box. If the launch pad is tilted in any direction, stand behind it. The wires will come unclipped very easily, so you may want to have someone hold on to the wires by the launch pad so that when you pull it taut, it'll tug on them and not the fragile connection to the rocket.

ACTUALLY LAUNCHING IT

• Start a countdown
• Around 3, put the key in the hole and press down hard.
• Right on one, or even an instant sooner, press down hard on the black square button and hold it. Hold it! It'll take a second for the engine to light.

And that's it! :) Now you're all potato gun/rocket launch experts.

A Guide to the Blog

Welcome to the official Beaver Science and Engineering Club blog! Here you'll find news, videos, pictures, and more. To help you get around, here are a few links to the most important posts and items:

Year One
First Meeting: Planning our first meeting ever, spent doing some simple planning
Second Meeting: Rube Goldberg Machines 9th grade won, 10th grade lost. :(
Third Meeting: Potato Gun I get the burn on my sweatshirt

And then there was a long stretch where we didn't do very much, but worked on rockets with egg payloads for a long time.

?th Meeting: Egg Launch Finale finally! after THREE MONTHS!
?+1th Meeting: Burning Flour the beginning of a new era
?+2th Meeting: More Flour... Waaaaay More we got some BIG flames

We did a bit more before the end of the year, but nothing significant.

Year Two
First Meeting: Potato Gun the year we don't make the mistake of starting out without a bang
Second Meeting: Silly Putty and Basic Rocket Launch fewer bangs, more chemistry
Third Meeting: Van de Graaff Generator and Rocket Dune Buggy less chemistry, more electricity
Fourth Meeting: Potato Gun + Target this time we have something to shoot AT, plus some more ammunition variety
Fifth Meeting dry ice, smashing a monitor, rocket car
Sixth Meeting rocket javelin [with video]
Seventh Meeting dry ice and two rockets, including one that kind of nearly killed us (or at least, nearly hit us) [with video]
Eighth Meeting we fail at making a hydrogen fuel-cell car
Ninth Meeting our rocket does eight flips [with video]
Tenth-Twelfth Meetings Recap the egg launch project puts us in a bit of a lull for the second year in a row

Miscellany
Become a Potato Gun/Rocket Launching Expert a few tips and tricks
Safety Guidelines we try not to be quite as reckless as we look

I will expand this guide as the blog expands.

Third Meeting: Van de Graaff Generator & Rocket Dune Buggy

Last Friday, the 10th of November, we held our third meeting. We started off by playing around with a Van de Graaff generator, which went quite well. I've never seen so many people so eager to hurt themselves. It's a bit disconcerting, actually.

We started off with some, ahem, shocking high-fives. Then it progressed to fist pounds and even a slap or two accross the face. Several people formed a long chain to extend their collective reach.

Then, by special request, we learned a bit about nukes. Unfortunately, the person who requested it was absent that day, so it was totally pointless and I apologize for wasting your precious time.

Once we were done with that we strapped a rocket engine to Tyler's GI Joe dune buggy. Unfortunately, it was a lot heavier than I had anticipated, so we sent it... uh... flying a whole ten feet. :) Well, to look on the bright side, that's about 8 feet farther than I thought it would go.

Check out the videos:


Video: VanDeGraaf Shocks All


Video: Rocket Car

Second Meeting and Harvest Fest: Success! (ish)

Sorry this update is coming a little late. I've been super-busy. Anyway, without further ado:

Second Meeting

We had our second club meeting last Friday. Vivek started us off by leading us through the steps of making some silly putty as preparation for our Harvest Fest booth. Once everything was up and running smoothly, I (and a small breakaway contingent) began to quickly assemble a camera rocket and prepare it for launch. Yearbook Club had come around toward the beginning of club block to take club photos, but we thought we could do better with an aerial shot.

Unfortunately, we had trouble getting the film to advance and decided to launch the rocket from the Lower Field without enabling the camera. It was a fairly windy day, so we made sure to angle the launch rod away from the school (and into the wind). Countdown and liftoff went smoothly, but the wind had died down slightly - we had overcompensated for it. As the rocket deployed its parachute and ejected several pieces of flame-proof wadding (each a small speck in the sky), we lost track of exactly what was what. It came down somewhere in the vicinity of the graveyard, the next-door neighbor, or Hammond Street.

Twenty or so high schoolers soon flooded the neighbor's property and fanned out to look for our rocket. It must have been a strange sight for the puzzled folks staring out the first-floor window at us. Almost immediately Peter jumped up onto the rock wall the separated the neighbors from the graveyard, and before long a large portion of our group had jumped the wall.

Our search was in vain, however. Despite our considerable manpower we never did find the rocket. Perhaps it was just as well that we never managed to arm the camera.

Harvest Fest

On Saturday was Beaver's annual Harvest Fest. For the first time, the BSEC had a booth (or two) of its own.

Segway

The first things people were likely to notice upon entering the Green Gym were two i-series Segway HTs gliding around a test track. This proved to be quite a popular attraction; the waiting list was full from setup time to shutdown time. At one point the wait was around 45 minutes long, yet still people found the rides worthwhile. The 11th Grade (with whom we shared the Green Gym) accused us of stealing their customers, but in truth I think we only attracted more people to the area. Cross-promotion is a powerful thing!

Many expressed frustration with never having a chance to take a Segway ride, so we'll think about doing this again sometime.

Silly Putty

Hampered somewhat by a lack of club helpers (thank you Emily, David & Co. for keeping it running), the silly putty booth was nevertheless a very enjoyable diversion from long wait times. I was busy the whole time at the Segway and 11th Grade booths, so if anyone has any silly putty tales to tell, please do so in the comments.

Third Meeting Plans

Unfortunately we're not quite sure what we're doing at our next meeting. Our tentative plan is to build potato guns, but there are some liability concerns. (No, a simple waiver wouldn't solve those problems.) But don't worry - we have several backup plans. Whatever we do, it'll be cool. Stay tuned.

Second Meeting is Tomorrow

It's been a long three weeks, but the BSEC's second meeting is finally nearly upon us! Tomorrow in clubs we'll be putting our science/chemistry skills to good use and making silly putty, as well as (probably) shooting off a potato or rocket or something. Fun fun!

We'll also be planning two most important things:

1. Our Harvest Fest booth, which will feature Segway rides and silly-putty-making demonstrations,
2. and our third meeting, when we'll actually get to make our own potato guns!

We'll have a report on how it all went sometime in the next few days.

Potato Gun v. Balloons

Any guesses what'll happen? Mmm? Any?

We tried this in the club Friday, but didn't have time to get it to work. Well, today we did. Enjoy... and start thinking about what we should shoot at our next meeting!


Video: Potato Gun v. Balloons

P.S. Sorry about the totally out-of-sync audio...
EDIT: Fixed audio by using MSN Soapbox instead of YouTube.

Fun Possibilities: Beer Cannon, Flaming Visualizer, & Hovercraft Ideas

Beer Cannon:



More info


Flaming Visualizer




More info

Hovercraft Ideas:
Here

Vivek's Breaking News Report

Vivek: “ZOMG TOP STORY! It has been reported by friendly, as well as hostile news affiliates that there is a tremendous decline in the scientific arena.

“Scientific research reaches luxury as proper funding can no longer keep pace with inflation. Fewer Nobel Prizes are offered, and published scientific research went down from 61% to a measly 29%.

“Wait, this just in…

“Japanese researchers have just completed their first working prototype for the ultimate, indestructible, infallible, unassailable, impervious, metallic, rock-solid, ubercool, ultra dooper…robotic super doggie.

“Could things get any worse?

“Fortunately, we have Dr. Knowsitall here with a solution to this…catastrophe. Dr. Knowsitall?”

Dr. Knowsital: “mmmblmbblmblmbalmbmblmlmeblmlmlmlbm... the only solution is to join the nearest science club!”

Vivek: “That’s it folks….JOIN the NEAREST SCIENCE CLUB. Back to you Toph!”

BSEC Year 2: Twice the Membership, 10x the Fun (or so we hope...)

Today, club presidents announced the year's clubs and people signed up. Following a report on the state of scientific affairs in the United States by correspondent Vivek Pai, featuring an interview with acclaimed researcher Dr. Michael Firer, Ph. D., on his response to the latest developments in Japan. We'll try to get a full transcript online ASAP.

People were apparently so traumatized that they signed up in troves - we have twice as many members as last year. Hoorah! Glad to have you all aboard. :)

Last year one of our issues was that we had large gaps in between fun activities. This year, we're going to do something cool every single meeting. That's our pledge to you.

So start thinking about fun ideas, and we'll see you all at our first meeting. (That'll be either this Friday the 29th or the week after, October 6th, depending on how the A Block/B Block thing works out. I'll post that here and on the club board when we find out.)

Gearing up for Another Year

As I write them I'm also working on the club application form that I hope will allow BSEC to continue for a second year. I'll admit that we didn't get a whole lot done last year, but we have much more lined up this time. We'll call last year a training run. :)

In other news, here's a pretty nifty video some guy put on Google Video - 8,500 bottle rockets:

Hydrogen-Powered Rocket Video

A launch of a hydrogen-powered Estes rocket, which works by splitting the hydrogen and oxygen in water and igniting the resulting hydrogen gas. It's kinda hard to see, since it's just filmed on a phonecam, but it's something. :)



It made a nice satisfying "whumpff" when it launched. Not quite as dramatic as a solid-fuel rocket launch, though. It's more like a stomp rocket.

Simple Little Engine Test

Well, school's out, but the fun never stops. We'll be bringing you several videos over the summer, if things go as planned, possibly including:

1) More rocket stuff
2) More potato gun stuff
3) More flour stuff (ahem... Vivek....) ;)
4) Diet Coke & Mentos

If you have any other ideas, post them in the comments. Now, here's a simple little video that just shows a Estes "A" engine duct-taped to the side of the rode, in case you ever wanted to see what they looked like while burning but can never get a good look at it during flight.



Of course, that pales in comparison to this monster of a bug:



We *need* to try that.

;)

Concrete, Mice, and No Videos

No club update here, folks. Just checking in...

Faithful reader Dafir sends in these links:

Light-Transmitting Concrete
Mouse Robots

The latter might be an interesting project. The former is just cool. :)

Meanwhile, J.P. pointed out the other day that "iRobot is putting serial ports on all the new Roombas and they have an SDK :-). The cheapest one is $150. Just something to think about if we want to do robot stuff."

As for the videos of our newest ethanol & flour exploits, they're coming. :) There's a fair amount of video to get through, and we all know how busy two weeks off from school (!!!) can be... ;)

(I'm actually quite serious, by the way. It's incredible how free time fills up. Infuriating, too. We need more vacation time...)

But anyway, that's coming. :D

More Ethanol and More Flour, plus Mini-Heli and Brownies

Yesterday we had another great BSEC meeting -- our third good one in a row! :) We had gotten stuck in a bit of a rut with endless Egg Drop delays, but the payoff was good, and now we're on a roll. ;)

PRELIMINARIES

This time, we started off by playing around a bit with Peter's mini-helicopter, a simple styrofoam disc with a remote-controlled propeller facing down. Pull the trigger on the remote, it rises. Pull more, it rises more. Let go a bit, it drops. No steering, but very very fun. It also works as a top if it lands upside-down.

Then the camera and ethanol arrived. We went outside and attempted to burn some flour, but had no luck. Too much wind? Maybe. We doused a brownie in ethanol, though, and burned it in the tin popcorn can. At first we didn't think it was burning, but it was -- boiling, bubbling and blackening, in fact. Only, we couldn't see the flame. Hm. Peter soon discovered, though, that if you drip ethanol on the brownie, you can see a brief flash of flame.

SUCCESS

We went back into the Physics room, turned out the lights, closed the doors, and pulled down the shades. We repeated last meetings' successful formula -- Mr. Clippenger hold the flour in his hand, Peter blowing it over ethanol-fueled burning paper. Only, this time, Peter decided to surprise us -- ESPECIALLY Mr. Clip and Vivek, who was filming in the line of fire -- with a much bigger-than-usual bang. We could actually feel the heat; the light was amazing. MUCH better than last meetings' puny poofs. We did it a few more times; we discovered that Peter could blow a bit, then blow a lot through the mini-fireball and get a nice big fireball stretching out toward Vivek. :)

I'd say our boom was at least ten times as big as the one in the last video. What would you say, Vivek? (I know you're out there...) I think it was probably about as big as my dog. Vivek has the video, so we'll just have to see.

WRAP-UP

After that we went back outside for another brownie-burn and more playing with the hovercraft. We were quite satisfied by our triumphs, and managed to fill the Physics room with a lot of smoke... incredibly, without setting off the smoke detector. (Hmmmm..... methinks we may have faulty equipment....)

All in all, much fun. I'll report in when we figure out what we'll do next time, and with luck Vivek will get some video up here some time.

Ethanol and Flour (with video!)

Our plan for today:

1) Play with LEGO Mindstorms set
2) Blow up flour

Flour, you see, is quite flammable in airborne-dust form. So, we got into the Physics classroom and took out a tin popcorn can, some flour, and the LEGO kit. JP immediately got to work on a robot, and we started looking for key ingredients in our experiment.

We got a candle and some matches. We went outside, put the candle in the tin, and lit it. We tried dropping some flour in and we tried blowing on the layer of flour at the bottom of the tin. All was to no avail; we got no reaction. We went back inside and determined we needed a bigger flame. Vivek left to get a bunsen burner and came back with some ethanol. We tried adding a bit of that to the candle, but to no avail. A small crowd gathered but dispersed after multiple failures.

We still needed a bigger flame -- and less wind. We went back inside again and watched this video for inspiration. New strategy: we put the tin on the ground, soaked a piece of paper with the ethanol, dropped it in the tin, lit a piece of paper, dropped that in, and had a nice little fire going. We then sprinkled flour on -- a little bit at first, and then some more.

We had no real video camera, so we used the camera rocket's nose. Quality isn't great, and you don't see some of our best ones, but it's better than nothing! :)



Next meeting we'll be doing this again, since almost everyone had left by the time we succeeded. Maybe we'll get a slightly bigger boom. :)

Egg Drop Aftermath: Autopsies

As today marks the two-week anniversary of our momentous egg launch contest, I thought I'd fill you in with a little more detail concerning the fates of our three rockets.

Vivek & Co. Potato Gun

Vivek's group's egg was, needless to say, completely obliterated. The vessel carrying it was just as wholy annihilated. The egg formed a small crater in the sand of the baseball diamond (see image at right).

The potato gun suffered some trauma of its own. As you can see in the video, Mr. Clippenger screwed the cap on very thoroughly. Unfortunately, this resulted in the cap being stuck shut. Fortunately, the issue has been resolved. :)

In addition, a small black film canister was found in the barrel of the potato gun. My hypothesis is that the canister was somehow part of Vivek's team's contraption, although I can't be sure.

Peter & Co. Long Rocket

Peter's group suffered a sad blow when their rocket's engine shot up through the body, through the egg, and forced its way out the top. The rocket itself never left the ground. The egg, found shortly thereafter, had a scorch mark and had been shattered, albeit not as completely as Vivek's.

The body shows few signs of trauma. One fin had broken off, although it is unclear how. The fin was found some time after the competition had concluded for the day, and was splattered somewhat with egg. The initial assumption was that the fin had come from my group's stubby cup rocket, but was changed after witnessed the missing fin on Peter's rocket.

The upper tube shows a slight rip in the cardboard, although it is unclear whether or not this was a result of the engine malfunction. The parachute, which (using the hole in the middle) had been slipped down over the nose of the rocket prior to launch, showed slight burns and fusing, although it is again unclear whether it was a recent injury.

The interior of the body shows no readily visible signs of scorching.

Toph & Co. Cup Rocket

The rocket appeared to launch well. The top portion separated as it was supposed to; the second stage opened up like a clamshell and deployed the parachute, just as it was supposed to. But upon landing it was found that the cup had split along the side and was oozing egg.

As it was a relatively soft landing, it is not clearly understood why the cup split. It is possible, from examining the video, that the rocket may have hit a tree branch. This would explain the strange crack, which we believe could not have resulted from that landing.

A second idea is that the stresses of liftoff cracked, compressed, and/or split the egg and cup. The parachute ejection charge that separated the booster phase from the carrier phase may also be to blame.

Mysteriously, the whereabouts of the remains of the cup rocket remain unknown. The video depicts Mr. Clippenger bringing it off to one side, but it is unclear exactly what he did to it or what happened thereafter.

Conclusion

Our inaugural egg launch/drop contest was not a success. However, it was certainly entertaining and educational. We look forward to a second contest sometime next year. That contest will hopefully be both better documented and more carefully analyzed. This is the Beaver SCIENCE and Engineering Club, after all. We should attempt next time to calculate such properties of each launch as velocity, distance, height, and more.

Egg Drop Aftermath: Update

As you saw in Vivek's last post, our thrice-delayed egg drop contest was finally concluded last Friday. I think it was a big success, at least in terms of entertainment value. :)

The only bad thing that happened all day was the final rocket getting stuck in a tree. I am now happy to report that Mr. Clippenger has managed to retrieve the rocket, and it seems to be in pretty good shape, despite its week exposed to the elements (including snow, and lots of it).

You can see in Vivek's video that it was hanging very precariously from the end of a thin branch. It actually fell from that spot even before we went back inside, only to land more securely in the neighboring pine. Fortunately, it's fine now. I was prepared to blast the tree with a potato...

The stormy edge of the silver lining to the stormy cloud of landing-in-a-tree-ness is that, well, we forget to start the camera rolling. :( Hey, don't blame us -- it was freezing out there, the wind knocked over the launch pad and rocket if you waited more than 30 seconds, it was our fourth launch of the day, and we were eager to go back inside and eat lunch. But the recovery means it shall live to film another day -- the meeting after next, perhaps?

Speaking of last meeting, the consensus at this point is to break out the Mindstorms and play around. Stay tuned.

Sixth Meeting Preview: Egg Drop Finale

This Friday we are concluding our egg drop contest, which we have spent the past two meetings preparing. Attendance dropped to an all-time low last meeting, and we're hoping to get some more people at this one.

Peter Wilmot's group will launch their egg-rocket, as will mine. Vivek's group will launch their egg out of the potato gun. And filming all the excitement will be a rocket with a down-facing video camera launched seconds before the others, which will hopefully give us some idea of how high the different eggs went.

Come by and watch!