Rocketry Science Fair Ideas

[Jr6150x]

Hi, I'm a avid player of Kerbal Space Program and a junior high student and Science Fair is coming up. Ever since I found KSP in 0.8 I have always loved space, and I now want to become a Aerospace Engineer. I know many of you in our community are experienced with Space mechanics and know much about the topic, So I was wondering if any of you could give me some ideas for a really educational and fun Aerospace/Aerodynamics Topic for science Fair

Thanks!

Jr6150x

[mushroomman]

Make a 2 stage bottle rocket. It'd be pretty hard.

[Jr6150x]

Thanks for the idea mushroomman, Sounds like a good project. Any others?

[M5000]

There was a Youtube user who tried out doing 2-litre bottle rockets powered by air pressure, that he filled with different liquids or powders as the reaction mass. You could try pressurizing a 2-litre bottle and filling it first with water as a control group, and then replacing the water with different reaction masses, possibly trying flour, dirt, or any other kinds of things that you could propel out of the back of the bottle. Time your launches to see which stays in the air the longest, and that would be your "height traveled" which in turn could tell you which of the propellants you tested is the most optimal. Obviously you would need multiple launches per propellant, and you would have to explain your predictions. /Why/ do you think one propellant would be the best or worst? What sets it apart from the others? Determine what factors from the environment around you could pose a problem to perfectly accurate data, for example, the wind blowing may create slight bits of lift on the bottle and slightly skew the descent time, or parallax caused by your reaction time on the stopwatch.

Perhaps you could also factor in aerodynamics, try making different nose cones and doing launches with each propellant, seeing which nosecone would yield the longest amount of time in the air.

Here's a starter, the bottle with the closest body to the Sears-Haack Body will likely get the furthest in an aerodynamics test.

Also, moving this thread over to the science labs, the people over there live for threads like this.

[Jr6150x]

Ok thanks! I wasn't sure which thread to put it in.

[dharak1]

If you are into electronics you could try to make something to record flight data, not only good for a science fair but useful after too. Arduino nano would be a good place to start. A 2 stage rocket sounds cool too.

[jwenting]

hmm, have to be careful with anything that could be mistaken for "a weapon" or "explosives" at a science faire. Don't want to end up in a police cell (which has happened).

[Starglider]

lol, so no guncotton-based solid rocket engines? Too bad. You can use them to power the model rockets you buy online.

[Idobox]

In a museum, I saw something amazing. A kind of funnel made of steel, with the slope getting steeper as you got closer to the center. It also had a small model of Earth in the center, and a springy thing like you find in pinball machines to throw a steel ball.

The shape of the funnel reproduced the inverse square law, and you could try different trajectories. In the end, because of friction, every orbit would decay, but with skill, you could make the ball revolve 10 times or more.

This is a relatively simple, but still pretty rich way to teach orbital mechanics

A more rocketry oriented thing could be to make water rockets with the same weight, and see how pressure and aperture diameter influence the performances. The wider the aperture, the higher the thrust, so the less gravity drag, but also the more air friction. You could make a theoretical model, and see how your experimental data fits.

[astropapi1]

Hello, fellow future Aerospace Engineer!

You might want to try this out:

I'm gonna build a Hybrid Rocket (you know, solid/liquid propellants) with a couple of friends. Planning to take it up to ~110km. In the meantime, we can get a couple of wows a month with small rockets. It's a growing experience, you get to learn little things from every flight.

[dharak1]

You wouldn't happen to be near Alberta Canada? I might be able to assist. What are you using for your solid fuels?

On the topic of the thread, Estes website sells all sorts of cones and rocket kits. I would build one rocket and get a few nosecones for it and measure the height and speed of the launch. And for the wider topped cones compare it to the loss rate on the Ares V wide topped rocket so you have basis on a large scale.

[Captain Sierra]

Hybrid rockets huh? How are you going to throttle it remotely? If you can't wouldn't it be easier to go solid fuel?

[dharak1]

I think hybrid engines have higher ISP. Hybrids also have a few other advantages: Being easy to make and get materials for. You can make solid fuel, you just have to boil stuff like stump remover. Expensive and dangerous. The idea of hybrids is cool too. It's like babies first steps. You do some of your own solid fuels for a while crawling, then you use your first oxygen tanks to make a hybrid rocket.

[Captain Sierra]

You could always go gas fuel. Electrolyse water to get 2H₂+O₂ and then you can get that down to size using a slightly modified air compressor. But that is a lot of work and less effective as you can't go full liquid (which is why we have nitrous oxide!)

[Jr6150x]

Thanks for all the ideas guys, definitely something to think about! Sorry I'm in the U.S. Thanks guys! keep it up.

[dharak1]

Gas fuel sounds cool. How effective is it? It would have low fuel mass too.

[Ralathon]

Gas fuel sounds cool. How effective is it? It would have low fuel mass too.

Not very effective. A gas fueled rocket works pretty much the same as a liquid fueled one. But the density of the fuel is much lower. This means your wet/dry ratio goes to hell and the burn tends to be less intense than with liquid fuel (this means a lower chamber pressure which in turn results in crappy ISP).

It is however a lot easier to make and generally safer. But if you want performance as opposed to a proof of principle you're better of using a proper liquid/hybrid rocket (N2O + solid fuel is a pretty easy starter).

[Idobox]

H2O2 is a rather common choice too, but it is more difficult to find that NO2.

[Dispatcher]

It would be interesting to invert a clear rocket with a bottle of a carbonated cola beverage or vinegar, and a bottle or box of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) inside. Releasing the contents into a reaction chamber/ nozzle might give the rocket some thrust. The devil is in the details.

[Whirligig Girl]

look at my sig.

Explosions with hypothesis. [/semirelevant topic]