PHASE 1.2 - Fins Purpose: We were to design and build the fins of our rockets. The fins are a very crucial part of the rocket. We had a choice in size, shape, number of fins. etc. Group Members: In this I worked with Sammie and Isabel. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Beforehand Thoughts: There were no previous research for this. We were just told to make fins. There wasn't really a certain limit or a certain aspect we needed to keep in mind. We just had to build and design fins that best fit our rocket. For the most part, we did it all on our own. We had freedom of size, shape, number of fins, etc. One of the only requirements we had was to make it out of balsa wood. DESIGN: I was in charge of designing our fins, and I actually designed it after this one rocket that was always showcased in Andrew's room. It was yellow and was called "Big Bertha" (I THINK). I really liked the type of fins that they used, and so I got a ruler and began measuring how long they were and transferred the measurements to a file on Adobe Illustrator. # OF Fins: I honestly thought that 4 fins were enough for our rocket. I knew that the weight for the fins and the whole rocket in general was very crucial, so I thought 4 fins was just enough. Any more would add unnecessary amounts of weight. I decided that 4 fins would be enough, and based on our previous model, the rocket was fine with very simple shaped fins. Materials:
Directions:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ What Happened? - A fin story We got our necessary materials and we began designing. Like I said earlier, I wanted to base our design off of "Bertha" the yellow one thing. I really liked how the fins elevated the rocket in height by jutting out below the actual rocket tube. I thought the design was really different and very interesting, and I thought it would be interesting to see how it would work with our scratch made one. I went on Adobe Illustrator and took a whole period to calculate all the measurements of our fins from the model yellow rocket. It took while, but I was able to create a perfect fin that resembled the model very much. I copied four of them onto the document and prined them out. Sammie and Isabel got the balsa and I got our paper. We cut out a fin out of paper, and place it on the balsa wood. We first outlined it with sharpie (JUST IN CASE) before cutting. We then proceeded to cutting, making a very fine fin. The x-acto knife we had was great and I thought that we cut a very quality fin. We then did the rest, cutting four of them out. Since we had a good knife, it was very easy to cut straight and full lines. Most of our fins were perfectly aligned with each other, there were a few areas that were crooked, but no drastic mistakes. We were able to save wood and materials. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
FINAL THOUGHTS: I thought our fin making was a lot more successful than our body making. I was very glad with how well our fins came out. They were almost exactly how I imagined it to be and the whole process wasn't much of a struggle. I think our fins will work well for our project. ROCKET STATUS UPDATE: WE GOT OUR ROCKET BODY AND OUR FINS DONE! WOOOOOO
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December 2015
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