Cold Weather Stomp Rocket Testing

[mbauer]

Cold Weather Stomp Rocket Testing

Outside Temp = 14.5 deg F. [-9.72222 deg C]

Sky conditions = CAVU (Clear and Visibility Unlimited)

Ground Conditions = Frozen snow/ice (from major dump and then rain).

Specs of Rocket being tested:
Height of Rocket = 32" [812.8mm]
Length of PSI Tube/Chamber = 30" [762mm]
Weight Ready To Fly (RTF) = 12.71 gm

Additional information:
Soda Bottle Volume = 2 liter
Launch Pipe Internal Volume = 0.27216 liters
Rocket PSI Tube Internal Volume = .30721 liters
Total Rocket + Launch Piping = 0.57937 liters (Total Volume of Rocket and length of Pipe as Rocket clears the pipe. Rocket acts as a telescoping pipe until it clears the Launch system.)



Today the temp is perfect for some Cold Weather testing. Test was done to determine effects of cold on the launch system.

Number of launches on a single soda bottle = 18 (bottle finally cracked at the end).

Found a pipe volume calculator online. Calculator finds that a pipe with an Inside Diameter of 0.59375" [15.08mm] with a total length of 60" [1524mm] = 0.27216 liters

Same calculator shows a Rocket with an Inside Diameter of 0.892" [22.66mm) x 30" [762mm] has a volume of 0.30721 liters.

After cutting one of the trees down in the yard, it was measured and found to be 68ft [20726.4mm] tall. It grabbed a couple of stomp rockets last summer. Fall was good time to turn it into firewood...

Height of Rocket is unknown, but as you can see from the video flight time lasted for all flights from 7-seconds to 10seconds for the longest flight. This time was determined by watching the video time shown, from launch until it lands.

Actual height is estimated (very low estimate) to be over 200+ feet high. [60960mm]. As you can see in the video, Rocket goes out of sight!

Rocket was designed to be a very high performance paper stomp rocket. Nosecone is removable and replaceable to repair any damage!

This High Performance Paper Stomp Rocket goes as high as some of the smaller rockets!!!

High Performance Rockets will soon be available as a set that can be downloaded and printed at home!

Find out more information or to purchase available rockets now by going to www.paperstomprockets.com or www.ecardmodels.com to purchase.

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[mbauer]

Some more videos!
At the following links:
YouTube - www.paperstomprockets.com 9-10 sec Flight.AVI
YouTube - Hp Stuck-8sec.AVI
YouTube - Paper Stomprocket 8-sec-3rd flight.AVI
YouTube - Paper Stomprocket 8-9 sec flight.AVI

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[airdave]

holy ballistic weapons batman!

hey thats not bad to come down only a few yards from where you launched!
that tells me it flies pretty straight!

[Paper Kosmonaut]

That's very impressive, Mike. And a NASA-worthy data rate! I only hope, when you developed your stomping skills even further, and will reach even higher you will start to use kilometers instead of millimeters (-;

[cgutzmer]

WOW! very impressive! When will it have a camera attached?

[mbauer]

Originally Posted by Paper Kosmonaut

That's very impressive, Mike. And a NASA-worthy data rate! I only hope, when you developed your stomping skills even further, and will reach even higher you will start to use kilometers instead of millimeters (-;

Thank you for the kind words!

Caught me in the act of being lazy! The "convert" program I use is simple and easy to use, that doesn't always translate into using the extra tabs though...

Just trying to find the limits of the system. As it is now, the PSI Tube and rocket combined use only 25% of the volume of the 2-liter bottle.

At 30" long [0.000762km] the PSI Tube part of the rocket is warping, this causes binding on the pipe. It might be at the longest possible length for it. Had to glue 3-letter size pages end to end to get the total length.

Real soon I plan to test this new system on the Saturn V, to see how high it will go.

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[Retired_for_now]

Mike,
Kudos for your (artic) fortitude - I'm surprised the bottle lasted that long at those temps.
To minimize friction for a long rocket - roll the body tube at least a sixteenth of an inch larger than the launch tube, then "seal" it by gluing layers of thin banding just inside the bottom opening to give a closer fit to the tube. That will eliminate all the friction except for the bit at the bottom and provide enough play to eliminate sticking and accomodate bent rockets. (see Falcon 9 stomp rocket for this trick).
Yogi

[mbauer]

Originally Posted by Retired_for_now

Mike,
Kudos for your (artic) fortitude - I'm surprised the bottle lasted that long at those temps.
To minimize friction for a long rocket - roll the body tube at least a sixteenth of an inch larger than the launch tube, then "seal" it by gluing layers of thin banding just inside the bottom opening to give a closer fit to the tube. That will eliminate all the friction except for the bit at the bottom and provide enough play to eliminate sticking and accomodate bent rockets. (see Falcon 9 stomp rocket for this trick).
Yogi

Hi Yogi,

Thanks for the advice!

The PSI Tube is slightly larger diameter than the PVC pipe, for the shorter rockets it is perfect, but going longer, issues do pop up.

Was thinking of doing something similar to your idea when the Goddard L13 rocket is redrawn to scale. It tapers at the nozzle, was thinking the body would be the PSI chamber, and the taper would fit the launch pipe.

If the L13 is scaled to fit the PVC pipe, the Rocket scale height is somewhere around 40" tall.

By doing it this way, the rocket might not ride up the PVC pipe properly though. Wait'll you see how I'm going to fix the wobble! (hopefully)

I'm finding that these rockets are a great diversion when designing/building the project I'm working on now. Very difficult project in the works! Nice break to design/build the rockets! Easy and quick to design/build!

Curious about a rocket that can use 1-liter of the available volume of the soda bottle.

Right now it looks like 25% of the soda bottle volume is being used.

After thinking it over, it doesn't really mean anything to measure the volume of the bottle after stomping. Too many areas for error, the plan now is to make longer PSI chambers until max height is attained.

Depends on foot size, how far the bottle rebounds after the stomp etc., to measure the used volume of the stomped bottle.

Yes, the rocket is getting a slight bend from the landings as well!

Goal is to lift 5-oz to at least 100ft!

What is really cool, the slide-on nosecone creates an air pocket that has to be forced out on landings. A shock absorber! How do I know this? The nose was not damaged until the glue seam blew apart on the 5th landing(cone to tube seam). Once that happened every flight did damage to it.

A whole new set of rockets will soon be done! Long ones, short ones with huge diameters etc...

The next rocket to be made will be a very large Saturn V. Presently the one I have now is 27" long, but hopefully 4-ft will work!

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[mbauer]

Just finished upgrading my version of the Saturn V Rocket.

Some very succesfull flights show that the newer PSI Tube increases the flight height attained from 40 ft to about 125 ft, even though the PVC conduit has a bend in it and the rocket was binding as it left the launch pipe.

This newer version has the same outside dimensions as the old Saturn V, that some have purchased in my rocket set.

Upgrades only affect the internal PSI Tube! This allows the old rocket version to be built with the newer length PSI Tube without major construction steps.

Specs of modified Saturn V:
Height = 27.75"
Diameter = 2.86"
PSI Chamber Length = 25" long (old one was 12.9" long)
Weight = 41.25gm (increased from 35.62 for the older version)
Outside Air Temp. = 19.5 deg F

Video Link

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[Paper Kosmonaut]

Originally Posted by mbauer

At 30" long [0.000762km]

That's a very good one. I really laughed out loudly. A bit too loud at quarter past one in the night...