Helicopter Recovered Model Rocket

General Project Info

My goal with this project (from the design standpoint) was to make something so useless just because it would be cool, and it would challenge me to come up with a clever solution. I have attached the PDF of my report (there are certainly things I would change if I did this today) but the goal of the project was to design a rocket and predict its flight time, then build said rocket to achieve a flight time as close as possible to the predicted value based on the design. A parachute would have been way too easy for me, so I decided to take on the challenge of a helicopter recovery system, where the ejection charge of the rocket motor deploys a set of blades that spin, causing the rocket to float to the gound. My main constraint in that design was that I wanted the helicopter system to work in a model designed for parachutes, requiring little to no modification. The added bonus to this constraint is that the rocket looks pretty (very important), since the blade would not be exposed.

Tools Used

• CAD & 3D Printing
• OpenRocket Design and Simulation
• Supporting Hand Calculations

Files

Below is a screenshot of the rocket and some of its specs in OpenRocket. I have also included the OpenRocket file.

Feel free to

the OpenRocket design file!