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OpenRocket

openrocket.info

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Re: OpenRocket

#41

Post by chasd00 »

evanwolf wrote: post #12

Is there a similar drone design simulator?

idk off hand but i'm sure there's something like OpenRocket for R/C airplanes. Where you put in the dimensions, wing type, mass distribution, and other stuff and it tells you if it's aerodynamically stable or not. After that you put in an ardupilot autopilot+gps+airspeed sensor and there's your drone. iirc, with ardupilot you can do automated flight planning like "fly to this gps coordinate, orbit for 10 minutes, fly home" etc.

to relate to OpenRocket, some people are into rocket powered gliders and use autopilots to make flying them after launch easier. It's basically a fly by wire setup so controlling the glider is on easy-mode with the autopilot doing most of the work keeping things stable while the human with the controller just focuses on making the slow circles back to the launch area. These autopilots are how typical quadcopter drones can be flown easily without the wind and 4 motors causing havoc constantly.

Re: OpenRocket

#42

Post by darkteflon »

Does anyone know of something similar, but for aircraft and/or drones? I’ve been 3D printing model aircraft with my 8-year old but would be great to take it to the next level.

Re: OpenRocket

#43

Post by chasd00 »

rmvt wrote: post #10
mitchbob wrote: post #2

The miracle of 3D printing. First ghost guns, and now ghost rockets. Will be curious to see what prediction markets will have for these.

i've recently had youtube randomly suggest me a video where this dude was building his own opensource manpads, with a single rocket costing under $100 in parts (there was no explosive payload so that makes it just a rocket and not a missile, i guess). not long after, someone posted it here on hn but i think it's been removed (by the mods, i imagine) since. i find these projects both fascinating and terrifying. seeing…

The knowledge and skill in the HPR (high power rocketry) hobby is definitely there to build basic weapon systems. Active stabilization using movable fins is a thing, onboard gps and flight controllers are also a thing. Nobody puts it together end to end though because it gives the whole hobby a bad look and the hobby governing organizations strongly discourage it too. Also, fortunately, most people have no interest in mass murder either. Much of the hobby is old engineers who are retired but still want to work on engineering projects in their garage.

Re: OpenRocket

#44

Post by joelshep »

dzink wrote: post #7

With the current wars this will only gain more interest.

But hopefully not that kind of interest.

Model rocketry, as a hobby, enjoys a limited amount of regulation, at least in the US. In large part, that is because the community has been very good about self-policing. Most folks who are serious about the hobby closely follow the safety guidelines published by the two national organizations (Tripoli and NAR), and steer newcomers to as well. Serious accidents are few and far between, intentional damage even more so. Compare this to, say, drones, which seem to be more widely embraced by the public, but are much more closely regulated and have been implicated in a number of serious incidents like https://abcnews.com/US/drone-operator-charged-hitting-super-... . Model and amateur rockets are cool. Folks mis-using them are going to run into a lot of pushback from pretty much every direction, because it'd only take an incident or two to ruin the hobby for everyone.

Re: OpenRocket

#45

Post by entropicdrifter »

sandrello wrote: post #23

I read the name and the first logical thought that came to mind was that of a platform to have AI agents iterating on rockets design. How doomed am I?

Why would you put that evil thought into other people's heads? Now someone might do that

Re: OpenRocket

#47

Post by hermitcrab »

darkteflon wrote: post #42

Does anyone know of something similar, but for aircraft and/or drones? I’ve been 3D printing model aircraft with my 8-year old but would be great to take it to the next level.

There is a game on Steam where you can design and fly your own aircraft. Would be fun to then try to 3d print the successful ones. But I can't remember the name of the game, sorry.

Re: OpenRocket

#48

Post by hermitcrab »

joelshep wrote: post #44
dzink wrote: post #7

With the current wars this will only gain more interest.

But hopefully not that kind of interest. Model rocketry, as a hobby, enjoys a limited amount of regulation, at least in the US. In large part, that is because the community has been very good about self-policing. Most folks who are serious about the hobby closely follow the safety guidelines published by the two national organizations (Tripoli and NAR), and steer newcomers to as well. Serious accidents are few and fa…

similar situation in the UK. It would only take 1 or 2 idiots to ruin it for everyone.

Re: OpenRocket

#49

Post by showerst »

zamadatix wrote: post #37
showerst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Wow even as a bit of a rocket nerd i'd never thought about it that way, that's pretty cool!

Re: OpenRocket

#50

Post by stackedinserter »

pm90 wrote: post #31

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.

What do they hold, exactly? Leaders are dead and keeps dying, good chunk of their military is defunkt, while "mightiest human forces" don't even have boots on ground.
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