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Let me share with you how at TH Rosenheim we continued to conduct project-based engineering education with our students that could be conducted at home and outside.

How can students study and learn the development process on a real example? Three Master students from TH Rosenheim elaborated those steps on the design, simulation, manufacturing and the launch of a water rocket. The propulsion force comes from air, that is pumped into cola bottle with water inside. The bottle serves as pressure chamber; a fast opening of the bottle expels the water and pushes the rocket up. The right mixture of air and water has an influence on the reachable height. This was analysed and optimized. The pressure chamber has been with modern CAD tools and modelled by Finite-Element Methods and designed to sustain a pressure of up to 20 bar.

Attached to the rocket are the fins for aerodynamic stabilisation. A service module was set on top. It contains the survival mechanism of the rocket – a parachute, which needs to be expelled at the right moment in time. The proper command comes from the Raspberry Pi inside the module, the brain of the rocket. It collects and stores the sensor data and commands timer controlled the cap of the rocket to be opened to start a safe landing. The flight of the rocket has been simulated with the original CAD designed parts including launch site and animated using the Virtual Reality Toolbox. You find the 5-minutes-movie of the project here.

Do you have tips or questions? Do you know of similar projects? Then contact me!

Best regards,

Peter Zentgraf