First Meeting Held

We met for the first time to build rockets this Sunday. I would like to welcome new members John, Tayler, Austin, and Anthony. I believe I spelled the names correctly. We got a good start on the rockets. This year we will be stressing STABILITY. Remember that the Center of pressure should always be at least 1/2 the body tube diameter, but preferably 2x the body tube diameter behind the center of Gravity. We discussed how to check these. I have posted a link to the free simulation software and some of the rockets we are building. I will have to create a file for the Black Widows. To use the software download the Software and select save when it askes what you want to do with it. After you save it move the file to your desktop. Now if you select the icon it will open the software for you.

Select the rocket file and it will take you to a web page for EMRR.
Right mouse click the Rocksim file on this page and save to a place you can find.

once all this is done you can open it in the open rocket software.

If you need help call me.

Software

Baby Bertha rocket file

Big Bertha Rocket file

Have fun and we will see you November 21st at the 4H building at the fair grounds at 5:30.

Video Cam

The Ragland clan launched their rockets this weekend with on board cams. check this out.
The rocket was a 5 ft tall kit and was launched on a I195 that means it is at least 145 times larger than the A size motors we used in our rockets last year. Select the link below.

Video

Rocketry 2010/2011

We are back in action folks. State fair ended not that long ago, and we are already preparing to start building for 2011. I must admit that I believe that our club made one of the largest impacts at state fair. We may not have all got purples but we had the most reds, blues, and purples for anyone county in Rocketry. I think 2011 will be even better. Everyone in the club, with the exception of 3 new members (maybe more), we all have a year under our belt.

Added this year, we will be giving the option to do a display. This is a completely different aerospace project from your rocket.

Our next meeting is Sunday October 24th Time and location will be announced a little later. With at least 12 members and at least 12 adults my house is too small. It is good to be in a position like this.

This year we will be covering the Center of Pressure and Center of Gravity more. I plan on giving you some demonstrations on this. We will also cover Motor selection. Both of these are very important.

For those who haven't seen it, attached above is a picture of the 8 foot rocket you saw me build this year, being launched at AIRfest16 in Argonia Kansas. I launched it on a Cesaroni Technology 38mm J381 skidmark motor. It had 660 Newtons of impulse (that is over 258 times more powerful than the A8-3's we used for the fair rockets)381 newton seconds of average thrust, and it flew to a low height of 2500 feet. The rocket weighed over 8 pounds.

SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO SOME DAY!!!!!!

see ya at the next meeting! Come prepared to get started!

John

The fair is over and it was a great time. All the rockets did very well. We will meet one more time before school starts so we can go over judges notes. We will then start over again in September. Every one is welcome and bring a new member if you can.

6 members launched today. It was totally awesome!!! Gavin launched first as the test flight, since he had a different rocket for fair. He launched a Wizard like everyone else and it landed on top of the grand stands. We moved the launch pads so the rockets would miss the Grand Stands. Garret launched his rocket with success. We launched John Crow and all 3 of his launches were great. We launched Jonathon Schmidts and had two great flights but on the 3rd the nose cone failed to eject due to extra buildup on the inside of the rocket. It lawn darted into the infield of the track, luckily it was soft dirt, and there was no damage to the rocket or anyone else. Still it was a good launch that Jonathon should be proud of. Chris Schmidt launched 3 times and had great launches. Andrew Crow launched 3 times. His rocket did very well. It flew the highest of the day at 451 ft. It was a great launch!
We will launch Freddie, Erin, and Christian's rockets as soon as we get a chance. We will also be meeting to finish the paint jobs on the rockets.
We look forward to County Fair, as we will be putting a collage together and a display. We will hopefully be launching the night of the races(small rockets that aren't our fair rockets).

Cool Stuff!!!!

Everyone needs to check this out!!!
Barb Schmidt sent this article to me and it is really cool.
It is very interesting.

January Meeting

The Jefferson County Rocketry Club met on January 17th at the 4H building. We accomplished alot. Everyone has their rocket almost completely assembled. I give everyone a round of applause for their hard work!!! In February we will Meet at the 4H building on Saturday the 20th at 4:00Pm. We will finish assembly of our rockets and start doing the prep work for painting.
See You There!!!!