Introduction

After the failure of my Estes Wizard, I decided I wasn’t just going to take my failure sitting down. After standing up, I decided to go ahead and make a new rocket — from scratch. The only parts I bought were Estes C engines — everything else was hand crafted. My main motivation for building my own rocket was that I wanted a rocket that would be recovered easily — in other words, I wanted it big and orange.

I did A LOT more research and planning on this project than Project I, so there’s a lot more information to go through. Essentially this project will go through all the planning steps and building steps. Each part of the rocket is given a separate section, and like always a problems and conclusions page will conclude the project.

Table of Contents

Stability
A quick lesson on how and why to make your rocket stable

Engine Design
How big do you want it? Your engine type will dictate the size of your rocket

Nice Body
The material, size, and length of your body is very important to consider

Fins
Fins are almost always required for stability — learn why you need fins and how to make them

Nose Cone
Making a durable nose cone is quite difficult. Learn from my mistakes and make the process as painless as possible

Engine Block
The engine block is the entire section of hardware that holds the engine in place during flight

Recovery System
A brief description of a recovery system. If you want more information on parachutes, check out Project I

Final Touches
Make sure your rocket looks pretty and has a launch lug

Problems
Any problems I encountered or couldn’t figure out — this should definitely be read before starting

Testing and Conclusion
Find out how my home-made rocket performed and my conclusion about the overall project