Intention

The reason I created this rocket was to teach children about aerodynamics. The main theme for all of my designs is to provide children with simple representations of hot-topic issues in technology today.

Process

I began with the idea of reusable rockets . Recently, there have been some companies who are demonstrating their capacity to send a rocket to orbit and land it back on the earth without damaging it. As an engineer, this capability is wildly exciting to me, and I wanted to do something with my toy that related to this. I settled on a two stage rocket that is fun to play with, but gets children used to (some components of) rocket science!

Product

The rocket you see above is a two stage rocket. It operates on chemical propellants (B/SV, Coke/mentos) that can be loaded into the fuel tank. It has a setting so that at the apex of the flight, an inner stage of the rocket shoots out of the top. This way, kids can experiment and see if the one stage rocket goes higher than the two stage one.

Reflection

I learned that actually designing this rocket so that something shoots out at the apex of its flight is difficult. The problem with this is that if it shoots out at the wrong time, kids won't see a big difference between the two types of rocket. I would consider designing a more accurate system for this release.