Im guessing that all the sudden interest in rocketry and drones is related to the war in the middle east? Because I have found that very interesting too, that a country as poor and as heavily sanctioned as Iran is managing to hold out the mightiest human forces the world has ever seen.
OpenRocket
31–40 of 128 posts
Re: OpenRocket
#32We used OpenRocket for designing our rocket for UK youth rocketry competition UKROC[1].
It is great for getting a 'spherical cow in a vaccuum' idea of likely altitude with different motors, centre of pressure, center of mass etc. But it obviously doesn't take account of detailed aerodynamics etc and we found the maximum altitude estimates were about 15% too high. But it was still very useful.
[1] UKROC is an amazing competition for UK school kids. And there are equivalent competitions in the US, France and Japan, with an International competition for the 4 country winners. If you know any kids interested in engineering I recommend you look into it.
Re: OpenRocket
#33Im guessing that all the sudden interest in rocketry and drones is related to the war in the middle east? Because I have found that very interesting too, that a country as poor and as heavily sanctioned as Iran is managing to hold out the mightiest human forces the world has ever seen.
Model rocketry has long been a gateway drug to get kids interested in STEM subjects.
Re: OpenRocket
#34This application gets used a lot in the High Power Rocketry hobby. Most of the parts/manufactures are included as well as motor manufactures. The simulations are very good and accurate, I would sim my larger builds at the location where i was launching to get an idea of altitude and it was always pretty close ( within 5-10% i'd say ).
I use to have a website where you could upload an openrocket file and get back 2d drawings for your fins that could then be sent to my lasercutting service. The idea was design the rocket in openrocket, send me the file, and get back the wooden pieces you need cut per the design. Similar to sendcutsend but for the rocketry hobby.
Really cool seeing it show up on HN.
Re: OpenRocket
#35Oh i've been looking for a project for my 11 year old... he's a very project oriented learner, which schools don't seem to do anymore.
What country are you in?
Re: OpenRocket
#36I wonder how crazy the scale here can get. How far can I go? The bps.space guy is heading into space. Can the community hit the moon? Literally.
Space Concordia, a Canadian university space-oriented student group, which is sort of amateur-level given that it’s driven by students and donations, attempted to reach space not that long ago with a liquid fueled single staged rocket. Here is a video of the launch https://www.youtube.com/live/610YciEs8qg?t=4594&is=aAWo8Y7vi...
Thank you so much for sharing this video, it's just amazing to see a bunch of young amateurs getting so excited about things that would have been virtually inaccessible 20 years ago.
Re: OpenRocket
#37I wonder how crazy the scale here can get. How far can I go? The bps.space guy is heading into space. Can the community hit the moon? Literally.
"Space" is 100km. The moon at its closest is about 350,000km. So the jump from the former to the latter is... significant.
Distance is usually the wrong measure in space. Something like delta-v will give you a much better scaling as once you manage to get something to orbit the rest is actually a lot closer than it would seem on the ground.
Not to say the effort somehow becomes peanuts, cheap, or easy... but the jump in delta-v needed to go from "100 km vertical ascent" to "hit the moon 350,000 km away" is more like a ~6-7x increase than a 3,500x one. If the moon were instead 700,000 km away the factor would still be ~6-7x.
Cool site for delta-v estimates https://deltavmap.github.io/
Re: OpenRocket
#38I wonder how crazy the scale here can get. How far can I go? The bps.space guy is heading into space. Can the community hit the moon? Literally.
Amateurs have reached the karman line, orbit is still pretty much out of reach. The people who get close to the karman line use two stage passive stabilized airframes and solid fuel motors. The airframes are basically works of art and it takes a lot of luck because of passive stabilization and Mach 3+ speeds. Many pictures of these rockets have their paint and leading fin edges burned off when they're recovered. Propellent is expensive and an attempt at > 100k feet is about $5-6k an attempt in propellent alone.
This guy is widely respected in the hobby and this flight made it to 293k feet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmv7G6Rf5WE
Check out the liquid bi-prop engines the halfcat guys have, apparently they were just certified by the HPR hobby governing organization Tripoli which means they can be insured at sponsored launches. With a liquid fueled engine you can do thrust vectoring (nozzle gymbaling) easier than solid fuel motors so active stabilization is more feasible. If you have active stabilization then all you need is thrust to weight > 1, enough fuel, and you'll eventually get to whatever altitude you want. Orbit means orbital velocity and that's just a whole other ball game.
Re: OpenRocket
#39Im guessing that all the sudden interest in rocketry and drones is related to the war in the middle east? Because I have found that very interesting too, that a country as poor and as heavily sanctioned as Iran is managing to hold out the mightiest human forces the world has ever seen.
Helps to have terrain around your country that makes it one giant fort
Re: OpenRocket
#40you gonna need them!