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Hartman wrote: ↑December 14th, 2019, 12:38 pm I've been kind of annoyed by the tangling of the parachutes and was thinking about replacing part of the string with a rod of some sort.

However, I couldn't find a material thin or light enough to work. Any thoughts?

How would you launch it without the rods breaking? Any kind of solid material is generally much heavier and not worth the weight.

builderguy135 wrote:

Hartman wrote: ↑December 14th, 2019, 12:38 pm I've been kind of annoyed by the tangling of the parachutes and was thinking about replacing part of the string with a rod of some sort.

However, I couldn't find a material thin or light enough to work. Any thoughts?

How would you launch it without the rods breaking? Any kind of solid material is generally much heavier and not worth the weight.

Well, I was kind of thinking about carbon fiber rods, and not replacing the entire string, but just the last few inches so that there wouldn't be tangling, but I'm not sure if it would work.

Hartman wrote: ↑December 14th, 2019, 1:51 pm

builderguy135 wrote:

Hartman wrote: ↑December 14th, 2019, 12:38 pm I've been kind of annoyed by the tangling of the parachutes and was thinking about replacing part of the string with a rod of some sort.

However, I couldn't find a material thin or light enough to work. Any thoughts?

How would you launch it without the rods breaking? Any kind of solid material is generally much heavier and not worth the weight.

Well, I was kind of thinking about carbon fiber rods, and not replacing the entire string, but just the last few inches so that there wouldn't be tangling, but I'm not sure if it would work.

lol your sig checks out. Honestly, I feel like you would face tangling even with the cf and i'm not sure if it's worth it. Seems also more on the expensive side. Given that you can only tape to the ping pong ball, I'm also not sure how you would execute that idea. As builderguy said, they might break if they are too long and you might have a hard time loading them onto your rocket.

looks like I just need to take the L.

On the other hand, there's another idea I wanted to blow past you guys.

I was thinking about putting straws or something that stick out from the tip of the nose cone that would leave air between the parachute and the nose cone so the parachute would deploy faster and more consistently.

Any thoughts?

Hartman wrote: ↑December 15th, 2019, 8:34 am looks like I just need to take the L.

On the other hand, there's another idea I wanted to blow past you guys.

I was thinking about putting straws or something that stick out from the tip of the nose cone that would leave air between the parachute and the nose cone so the parachute would deploy faster and more consistently.

Any thoughts?

lol i actually had the same thought a while ago but I didn't go forward with it. Maybe a possible issue is that the rocket doesn't always fall straight down, so the straws might not be that useful in that situation.

CookiePie1 wrote: ↑December 15th, 2019, 2:11 pm

Hartman wrote: ↑December 15th, 2019, 8:34 am looks like I just need to take the L.

On the other hand, there's another idea I wanted to blow past you guys.

I was thinking about putting straws or something that stick out from the tip of the nose cone that would leave air between the parachute and the nose cone so the parachute would deploy faster and more consistently.

Any thoughts?

lol i actually had the same thought a while ago but I didn't go forward with it. Maybe a possible issue is that the rocket doesn't always fall straight down, so the straws might not be that useful in that situation.

Also I would think that it would make it easier for the strings to tangle on the straws and prevent separation.

Anyone know how to make the parachute not tilt? Ours doesn't go straight up and down so the parachute sometimes catches.

builderguy135 wrote: ↑December 15th, 2019, 8:27 pm Anyone know how to make the parachute not tilt? Ours doesn't go straight up and down so the parachute sometimes catches.

We solved that by fixing the rocket first and having it go straight up

Hartman wrote: ↑December 15th, 2019, 8:34 am looks like I just need to take the L.

On the other hand, there's another idea I wanted to blow past you guys.

I was thinking about putting straws or something that stick out from the tip of the nose cone that would leave air between the parachute and the nose cone so the parachute would deploy faster and more consistently.

Any thoughts?

We did something similar. I took weed wiper plastic sticks and attached them to the nosecone so they stuck out from the bottle. The idea being they would flex in at launch and the out at the top of the flight allowing the parachute to open easier. It didn't work! The parachute pushed in tight to the bottle between the supports and basically made 4 giant fins - the rocket flew beautifully with the parachute firmly attached. It was worse that just draping the parachute over the bottle.

At my most recent invitational, my school's ppp team didn't do so wear despite having a great parachute and rocket. The main problem was that the launcher is different and a 12psi from our launch (which would've sent the rocket up 15 ft, only sent it up 2-foot in the competition launcher. This basically rendered our data useless and on a second launch, which they increased the pressure to 20 psi, only managed to sent it up 4 feet. How do other teams deal with this uncertainty and inconsistencies between launchers?

Xiangyu