April 12th 2013 Meeting Report

The secondary sights are up functioning and going just fine. (facebook.com/ReactionResearchSociety, youtube.com/ReactionResearchSoc, twitter.com/ReactionResSoc) I’ve made some progress with wordpress but it still needs some work.

 

Frank brought a few old newsletters and he has let me borrow them to scan, which is already mostly done. He also let me borrow a book on Peroxide rocket race cars. I found a guide on making a simple make shift book scanner, and I used it to scan the book. (http://www.instructables.com/id/Bargain-Price-Book-Scanner-From-A-Cardboard-Box/) I gave it a try and it ‘s pretty easy and doesn’t take too long.

 

Hey I have a great Idea! Let’s all scan any books on rocketry that we may have that are out of print or hard to find and start making an RRS digital library. I love books, and it would be great if we get more accesses for the rare books we’ve all collected over the years, it would make a great resource. If  you have any books on rocketry you’d like to share, I volunteer to help you scan them or to scan them for you. Drop me an email if you’re interested and I’ll do what I can. (my understanding is that it’s not a copyright violation if it’s used for nonprofit educationalpurposes which defiantly covers the RRS) Also if you have any RRS newsletters, lets scan those too.

 

I contacted Tripoli and NAR about insurance, they suggested ether Lloyds of London (the guys we got the high quote from before) or talking to the Quad Cities group who self insures. I will contact them and I also received a suggestion to look up New York Life for insurance.

 

No mention was made of our new lease. I forget to bring it up, sorry about that, it was a pretty busy conversation. I’ve asked them about it in an email. Hopefully they will be making all the details clear.

 

Recently an open source 3D printed rocket competition has been announced. I’ve joined the competition and submitted an initial design. The thing is pretty short, it’s over in June and it just started. If anyone is interested in joining me, just drop me an email.

(http://www.openspaceuniversity.org/, here is a link to a video of a 3D printed rocket someone has already made earlier http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bt2vQdgpZZg)

 

Osvaldo brought a Magnetic Apogee Detector he put together from a kit. The device works by deploying the parachute when it detects that the rocket has tipped over by measuring the earths magnetic field. We went outside for a demonstration where he used it to set off an ematch.

 

There was discussion regarding recording the mounting features at the test stands at the MTA to assist in static testing. I’ll see what I can do about that when I go there for the upcoming launch. It was also suggested that we start developing some standard static test equipment for data collecting. The idea was to use something like an Arduino to record thrust or pressure etc. I wasn’t planning on working on something like that until I had a rocket that really needed it, but if you’re interested send me an email and I’d be happy to contribute.

 

Getting the membership cards is coming along and will hopefully be ready for when the membership updates will be sent out.

 

The April 27th launch at the MTA is still on. USC RPL will be launching a rocket. There may also be some launches of some micro grain rockets and static testing and launching of some Sugar/KNO3 rockets.

 

My Peroxide/Gasoline rocket won’t be ready by then. But I may have a Sugar/KNO3 rocket to static test and launch. I was inspired by Osvaldo’s magnetic apogee detector to start working on a tilt sensor based apogee detector using an Arduino that I hope to fly if the sugar motor static test goes well.

 

-Richard Garcia