Rebel Rockets- Day 12

Today we had two failures, but it lead us to the solution to our problems. We had our first launch in the morning, this went so high we had absolutely no idea where it went, at all. So we decided to make our parachute smaller, that way it would fall faster and not be carried by the wind so much. We still lost this rocket, even though we were able to follow it to the ground, it went into the woods and was lost. Because of both these failures we decided we had to switch to a smaller engine. While this is pretty disappointing, we had initially thought the rocket wouldn't go so high with our chosen engine so we are actually closer to what we proposed by switching to an A engine rather than a C.

-Mike B.

Today, we launched more rockets. We tried to look for a different spot at the school to launch, and we did find a larger, wider area more suitable for launches. The first engine we tried to use was a dud, however, the second one worked. We ended up losing the rocket again cause the wind took it too far. So, after that we went back to construct another rocket. We launched this one with a smaller parachute, thinking the wind wouldn't take this one as far, but it did so we lost that one too. We decided at the end of the day that we would have to use smaller engines because we can't lose every single rocket that we launch, especially when the accelerometer is mounted in them. We decided to go with A engines, which are much weaker than the C engines we've been using. The A engines would be easiest to work with because they don't go as high up and it would be more difficult to lose them.

-Christian

Once again, we launched rockets. We used the new field and lost the rocket after it fired. We decided to change rocket engines. First, we decided to try out a smaller parachute, in hopes that the rocket would fall down more vertically. This did not happen, so we were forced to change to smaller rockets. This will make the rocket go less high, but hopefully, we will be able to find the rocket afterwords.

-Ben W.

We were able to launch a rocket early in the day. We rocket went so high in the air that we were unable to even see it come down. The parachute must have ejected and the rocket flew away. We decided to try another launch, but to use a smaller parachute so the rocket would fall faster and would not be as far off target. The rocket fired correctly and we were able to follow it's path, but it went into the woods. We now concluded that we need to use the A engines instead of the C engines so that the rocket will not go as high and we will be able to recover it.

-Scott

We went ot the school first thing in the morining and set up near the baseball field. This time the rocket went very high and we some how lost track of our rocket. We were on the fence about uses smaller engines but today proved that we should. So we went and made a smaller parachute so it will fall faster and not go off into the woods where we can't recover it. We initally thought that the C engine was not strong enough but we are thinking that the A engine is the way to go this time.

-Kushal

Even though we redesigned the parachute to fall more quickly and thus improve our chances of retrieving the rocket the C engine still propelled the rocket too high. Even with the smaller parachute the rocket still drifted off into the woods and we were unable to find it. We've decided that due to our time constraints we will move directly to an A engine to ensure that we no longer lose the rockets.

-Mike