Our storyline....
Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz we needs more burny an' dakka way off dat way. So, sayz he, "Mek, make me anuder of dose grot rokkits!"
"Righ' boss!" sayz our Big Mek.
Pretty soon we'z ready. Da yoosless grot (Grot Pilot) iz loaded in 'is boomy (Bomb Capsule) on top of da big burna (Rocket). Dat lil' bomb aima (Grot Pilot, Grot Astronaut, Test Pilot) iz ruddy an' we starts a coun-down.
Ten, nine, ay, sebum, den some udder nummers and wham -- off she goes.
Dat rokkitty fing gets to da top (Apogee) an da yoosless fluff pops out (Parachute). Dat don' slow down dat grot - naw - he aimz direkly fur da aimin spot (Target).
Den, dakka-dakka-boom! Dat grot lanz ri' wur hez spozed to hit!
Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz he, "Dats wa' I kallz teknulogize ri' der! Waaaaagh!!!!" An off we goes to attak!
How our launch went....
Today we launched the Grot Rokkit, our "Waaagh! Payloader" under real rokkit power.
Not sure how high we got it.
We had planned to use a little bit of Orky Mek no-how and mayzure da anglez -- measure the angle from the horizon -- to use some trigonometry to calculate our altitude. But.... Our angle measurement didn't work out so well. [Here's a link to a NASA site with those calculations. We were going to use the simple single observer version.]
Our guess - we got to somewhere between 200 and 500 feet up. [What units do Orks use for measuring length anyway? Maybe 'chuckin' distans' (the distance the Warboss can throw a misbehaving grot?)]
We used a B6-4 motor in our Nova Payloader rokkit. Judging by how high some other rokkits went, we could have gone larger on the motor and still stayed under the Moffett Field limit of 1000 feet (what's that, 50 chucks???)
Highlights:
- Launch worked!
- Grot Rokkit parachute deployed
- Our tether system to hold the whole rocket together worked well
- Did get up to 200-500 feet (10 or 25 chucks)
Things to try to do better:
- The grot was actually ejected at "da top" (apogee) and did indeed free-fall. We're calling this something to fix because we don't want to lose our grot capsule. But, in Ork terms, this was a huge success since the grot was able to steer all the way down to his target!!!
- Not enough smoke. We saw that some people had rokkit motors which intentionally made more smoke. Da's fer us!!
- Go highyu. We're invited to go launch again over at Livermore where we can put in a bigger rokkit motor! Bigga = highyu+betta!
- More close-ups for video! (We wanna see da look on dat grots face wen he launchez!)
Info and Links:
- Here's a link to our earlier blog, when we first built up our Waaagh! Payloader Grot Rokkit and it's Grot Capsule, the Waaagh! Lander 7.
- Here's a link to our Youtube video with the Waaagh! Payloader launch.
- Here's a link to the Lunar club website. They host the launches in the Silicon Valley area.
- And, small aside, we were a bit worried that the weight distribution of the Waaagh! Lander 7 would cause the rokkit to shoot sideways. We did find this video of kids launching the same Nova Payloader Estes rokkit with a Lego Astronaut inside. It went straight enough - so we set our human worrying aside and blasted off. Sure enough it launched straight!
Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz we needs more burny an' dakka way off dat way. So, sayz he, "Mek, make me anuder of dose grot rokkits!"
"Righ' boss!" sayz our Big Mek.
Pretty soon we'z ready. Da yoosless grot (Grot Pilot) iz loaded in 'is boomy (Bomb Capsule) on top of da big burna (Rocket). Dat lil' bomb aima (Grot Pilot, Grot Astronaut, Test Pilot) iz ruddy an' we starts a coun-down.
Here is the Grot Bomb Aima ready to go!
Da grot rokkit iz ruddy fur take-off!
Ten, nine, ay, sebum, den some udder nummers and wham -- off she goes.
Dat rokkitty fing gets to da top (Apogee) an da yoosless fluff pops out (Parachute). Dat don' slow down dat grot - naw - he aimz direkly fur da aimin spot (Target).
Den, dakka-dakka-boom! Dat grot lanz ri' wur hez spozed to hit!
Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz he, "Dats wa' I kallz teknulogize ri' der! Waaaaagh!!!!" An off we goes to attak!
How our launch went....
Today we launched the Grot Rokkit, our "Waaagh! Payloader" under real rokkit power.
Not sure how high we got it.
We had planned to use a little bit of Orky Mek no-how and mayzure da anglez -- measure the angle from the horizon -- to use some trigonometry to calculate our altitude. But.... Our angle measurement didn't work out so well. [Here's a link to a NASA site with those calculations. We were going to use the simple single observer version.]
Our guess - we got to somewhere between 200 and 500 feet up. [What units do Orks use for measuring length anyway? Maybe 'chuckin' distans' (the distance the Warboss can throw a misbehaving grot?)]
We used a B6-4 motor in our Nova Payloader rokkit. Judging by how high some other rokkits went, we could have gone larger on the motor and still stayed under the Moffett Field limit of 1000 feet (what's that, 50 chucks???)
Highlights:
- Launch worked!
- Grot Rokkit parachute deployed
- Our tether system to hold the whole rocket together worked well
- Did get up to 200-500 feet (10 or 25 chucks)
Things to try to do better:
- The grot was actually ejected at "da top" (apogee) and did indeed free-fall. We're calling this something to fix because we don't want to lose our grot capsule. But, in Ork terms, this was a huge success since the grot was able to steer all the way down to his target!!!
- Not enough smoke. We saw that some people had rokkit motors which intentionally made more smoke. Da's fer us!!
- Go highyu. We're invited to go launch again over at Livermore where we can put in a bigger rokkit motor! Bigga = highyu+betta!
- More close-ups for video! (We wanna see da look on dat grots face wen he launchez!)
Info and Links:
- Here's a link to our earlier blog, when we first built up our Waaagh! Payloader Grot Rokkit and it's Grot Capsule, the Waaagh! Lander 7.
- Here's a link to our Youtube video with the Waaagh! Payloader launch.
- Here's a link to the Lunar club website. They host the launches in the Silicon Valley area.
- And, small aside, we were a bit worried that the weight distribution of the Waaagh! Lander 7 would cause the rokkit to shoot sideways. We did find this video of kids launching the same Nova Payloader Estes rokkit with a Lego Astronaut inside. It went straight enough - so we set our human worrying aside and blasted off. Sure enough it launched straight!
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