Brief overview of the design process that your team used to select your rocket’s nose cone,

fins and any other alterations to ensure streamlined and stable flight.

Our rocket consists of 3 main parts: body, nose and fins, which are all
responsible for stability of the rocket during flight. We have started developing
our rocket design by considering the rocket design criteria given. Only a 600 mL
plastic Coke bottle could be used as a base. This was to ensure that the rocket
will behave as predicted, i.e. no or minimum defect under a given pressure. We
have emptied it and removed the label so the body is ready to be used. The bottle
was not cut or had any other structural modifications, as it would lead to
instability.
Our next step was to find the optimal design of fins. Fins are mainly responsible
for the smooth flight of the rocket. Material By exploring Table 10-1 from
Appendix 2, we found out that the elliptical rod had one of the smallest laminar
drag coefficient and the smallest turbulent drag coefficient, which means that it
will be more efficient in the air as there is less resistance. The aim was to use
length to width ratio to get the smallest coefficient possible in given conditions.
Fins length and width coeff Fins were cut in halves making half-elliptical rod and
placed at the lower half of the rocket as the center of pressure is closer to the tail,
which stabilizes the rocket. One other possibility was to place fins right at tail,
however, this would lead to more drag. Also, it was stated that the clearance
zone of nozzle is 30 mm, this would mean that the fins need to be on an angle,
which would also increase drag.
A nose cone was added to make the rocket more aerodynamic. For the nose we
have chosen a Ping-Pong ball as it is perfectly round and would increase stability.
The Ping-Pong ball was cut in halves and one half was attached to the body of the
rocket using an additional bottle. The upper half of the additional bottle was
used as a nose cone as curvature. This choice was made to ensure the nose cone
is smooth and not tilted. This helped to reduce air resistance and increase
stability of the rocket.
Before the construction of the rocket, stability was enhanced by adding two coins
to the top to move center of mass to the center of the rocket. Superglue was used
in construction to minimize the weight of the rocket in addition to tape that
smoothed out the rocket parts.
The rocket’s max mass was supposed to be 100g, while ours has fallen into 1%
range, being 101g.