Everyone has their "White Whale" (Moby Dick) and for guys like Chad, Adrian, and I (and others) - that is altitude. Maybe scale up and do a big Estes kit? How about scratch building a scale kit that you have never seen at a field (Viking??) So many options...

I'm not sure what is next for me, either - that is the cool thing about this hobby. I'd like to learn how to roll my own tubes like Adrian has done... or work on cones. On the electronics front, which seems to be your calling, I personally can't offer insight, as I'm the village idiot on most things electronic... If I could snap my fingers and do something that I've never done before, it'd be cameras - though Doug has raised the bar so high, I can't begin to start to think about doing some of what he has done.

What you are suggesting sounds great. Maybe CU or CSU or Mines would be interested in capturing an atmospheric sample from high altitude?

Not much help, but you have an interesting area of focus and that is very cool -

Bruce, now you know what to name your next rocket- the White Whale.

Bruce,

It is awesome that you like telemetry! I tried this January to build a unit that gave me temp/pressure/humidity but I just couldn't get into programming it. I used to be able to program in assembly but I've lost those skills but those new PIC controllers look really really really cool. I'd love to learn how to program in those.

As far as telemetry, I'd say just start with temp/pressure/humidity and if there was a way you could track windspeed at altitude and downlink it I'm sure many of the high altitude fliers would love that data 🙂

As far as me I've realized I love building motors. I could static test all day and not build a rocket. You build the telemetry and I'll build you a motor 🙂

Edward

There's something called the L3 Syndrome, which is when once you've achieved it, you either drop out (bad thing), or find another direction (good thing). I'm looking for a new direction. JW is our altitude guru, as well as other really great flyers in our club. I went through this once before in about 1968 when I was 15. I had built all the kits and custom made rockets I could, even spun one out of balsa on a lathe. Then towards the end of that year telemetry transmitters began to emerge. I had always loved electronics, and that was my salvation. And, I even still have a solar powered transmitter with the solar panels. While I went to NARAM-11 the next summer and won a national trophy (lucky shot), I really found nothing that I liked about competition and rocketry. To me, it's about science. Okay, and the absolute rush when your rocket heads up with a roar. Chemistry came before rocketry, but rocketry grew from that. I could go into making research motors. While that is a possibility, that's not where I am right now. I went back to flying (other than launching telemetry transmitters) in the mid to late 80's by going higher in power. FSI F100's: 3-F's to 3-F's, etc. I really think I want to go back to telemetry. I mean, c'mon, when I look at what's available now, it's just amazing. I can even use microcontrollers, which when I built an onboard computer way back when, it was chip by chip by chip... now, it's just an inexpensive unit, complete with a list of sensors. I guess what I'm asking is what data should I go for? Yeah, of course, I want temp/hum/press, but anything else? Anything interesting or useful. Yes, there are gyro's, 3-axis accelerometers (low g's though), CCD cameras, color sensors, gas sensors, vibration, you name it. I'm even using an ionization chamber from a radiation meter with a better circuit to detect gamma rays. Why? I have no idea. It's just fun to me. Any suggestions?

Try airstarts and staging if you want some more challenge.

If I weren't having so much fun going for performance, I would probably get more into GPS. In particular, I think it's possible to use an RC skydiver chute and a small servo to make a mid-sized rocket it fly itself back to the pad after an apogee deployment, using GPS and maybe a digital compass. I'd love to see someone do that.

I find the Zilog microcontrollers pretty rewarding because they have a great set of inexpensive development kits to get started, and it comes with a complete C coding environment.

Hey, all this sounds great. I received a PM from another person I admire a lot in this hobby, and he suggested a number of things. One of which is using a flight computer for staging, etc. It would be so easy to use a C Stamp at 12 Meg instructions per second as opposed to a BASIC Stamp that gives you only a couple thousand per second, plus I used to write firmware in C... and others things in various forms of BASIC and C++. (Edward, life's too short for Assembly.) Anyway, it would be easy using Boolean logic to detect IF separation had occured (many sensors from light in different spectrums to Hall Effect sensors), then do nothing. OR, if separation didn't occur, monitor airspeed/altitude, then push out the main at the correct point. In fact, Adrian, either the C or BASIC Stamp has a real-time compass sensor. How cool is that? Plus, I've always wanted to play with an Earth's magnetic field sensor. Edward, I've had an OOPic system in a box for years now. I only played with it years ago. Hmmm... it's going to be hard to get to sleep tonight. 8) Thank you... and keep the suggestions coming! The White Whale... I like it! But what color should I paint it? Another thing I was thinking about is picking an old sounding rocket and scale it true (ASP) or slightly down with my version of one of its mission payloads. Hmmm...

JW, I can only think of one Estes kit I'd like to upcale, but maybe the Centuri Payloader II with an electronics payload? An ASP would be really cool... but those fins in G10? Nah... I think I'll just add a payload bay to the Crimson Comet for now, then move on to something else.

The upscale bug has bit me a bit - like you, I'm trying to broaden my horizons a bit. I always thought at HUGE X-Ray would be cool. Doug's Mars Snooper is the single best upscale I've ever seen.

I once saw a Mars Lander that was about 5' tall. It was way very cool. I can't imagine devoting that much time to a project!

Howzabout an Orbital Transport that you flew back with RC? Now *that* would be cool.

Trident? Nope... too complicated for this farmboy...

I like all suggestions. I have a knack for gliders. However, I have this electric RC plane that I tried to fly a few years ago... and I've had to replace every part, except the motor, at least once--though the motor is loose now. I tend to crash RC planes and gliders. My gliders have to go unto themselves. THIS is cool though, and not unlike bringing a Orbital Transport Glider back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9oOUyeh9E&NR=1
Now, the neat thing about this is using electronics to bring a glider back... without human intervention. It could be done. Right now though, I'm just going to start with gathering data. I'm just trying to figure out what I want. It's easy enough to monitor motor casing temperature throughout flight, etc. I will gather temperature, pressure and humidity only because I wanted to do that when I was younger, but could only monitor one parameter per flight. Now it's a module and simple programming. I'm in the research and thinking stage now.

How about going liquid? Here's a cool video of a guy I met down in Denver testing one of his liquid motors. Some of you guys may recognize him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49aFPGEjALM

So maybe not liquids.

-Sean 😯

Sean, that was so cool! At least, I'd have a reason to use all those old 386's and 486's that I just couldn't throw away... My next flight will probably be at Mach 1.5, and I'm thinking about some sensors to monitor the transition. That video was so cool... gotta go back and see it again. I have a book that I bought in the 60's about making liquid fuel motors. I almost had my Dad considering it at the time. He was a combustion engineer. Had a neat garage, with my chemistry equipment and all his tanks, valves, etc. Hee, hee... 😯

I'm getting close to going for my L2 and am already feeling like I'm going to need something to keep me truly engaged in rocketry. It'll be a while before L3, so in the mean time I've been thinking of other related projects. Right now, electronics is the top of my list.

That x15 recreation was awesome! And you're right about the auto-piloted glider, it's very do able, and with off the shelf parts. You might take a look at the Ardupilot project, and it's parent Arduino project. Based on the ATMega328 processor (24Mips), and there's a development environment to go along with it. Tons of possiblities, and dirt cheap processing power to run it.

Ardupilot project

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?c=23&sidx=pd.products_name&sdir=ASC&sipp=100&page=1

I was reading about that. Check this out, number 4 & 5 down the page. 6DoF, plus I saw a 3 or 2 axis accelerometer at +/- 250 g's. Too much, and there's one that is +/- 16-18 g's. The only ones I could find before were +- 3-4 g's. Definitely too wimpy for HPR. But now they're out there. I should move this to the electronics section. I'll do that very soon.

Yes, there are a lot of sensors out there that people have hooked up to this device. 6 DoF accelerometers like you mention, gyros, baros, GPS, radio telemetry, servo control, horizon sensors. Other than tracking and data gathering, I was thinking maybe a stabilized camera platform could make a good branch project. It gets tiring watching all those spinning descents 😉

Moved to "Electronics"...