Week 3 & 4

Week 2 - The Motor

Another delayed report... this time I blame Sze Hann.
Belated report for the 24th of January .

The 2nd session went.. lets say.. a bit off-track, none of us had actually planned on what to do, but we pushed ahead with the idea of creating a housing for our awesome motor. Before we begin:

1. Repay Ms. Pardoe for the clay (I took a massive chunk, my bad ^^)
2. Get Epoxy resin for Mr. Lord (He gave us a brand new pack!)

The first step was to design.. the casing. The first and only plan was to create a container (per say) with a card tube, and fill it with the fuel, and then seal both ends with clay. The fuel would then be compressed into a solid (possible as the ingredients are similar to black powder). Once sealed, a drill will be used to.. drill (da dum tsh!), a hole down the middle, to pass a wire and a fuse (iron wool?) to ignite the fuel. This image should clarify it:

During the session, further research led us to our sealant - Bentonite (wiki link). Once the properties and effects of bentonite were seen on a youtube video, we had to compare the effectiveness, ease and reliability of 3 types sealants (2 of which were reproduced in the lab).

• Bung + Epoxy
• Modelling clay from the art dept. (compressed and let to dry).

Well, that concludes the 2nd session.. which was the session in which I actually created this blog. ^^

- Vish, checking out.

(God that sounds cool)

Week 1 - The fuel

Yes, I know this is one week late, but I blame Teng, I don't know why.. but let's just keep it that way.

Cutting the chatter and excitement, we all moved into finding the relevant fuel to propel our rocket hundreds of feet into the air, than watch it blow up in front of us. If you guys still didn't get it, we are attempting to build a full fledged rocket - motor, fins, parachute and vertical height gained.

But the first thing we should get together is the fuel; without which the rocket will not go anywhere.

The magic combination happened to be:

• Saltpeter - (63%)
  
• Sugar (Yeap, SUGAR) - 27%
  
• Sulphur - 10%
  

- Vish