Piñata Rocket: The Evolution.

By Anthony Cooper, LUNAR#571

The Piñata Rocket began Oct launch 1999. My Daughter Krystal Ember Cooper was born Sep 23, 1999. I don't smoke, so I give out candy in lieu of cigars. I bought 60 "It's a girl!" suckers from Sees Candies to distribute to my rocket friends. I needed an unusual way to give them out. It came to me to drop them from a rocket. But a falling sucker might be kind of painful. So I attached streamers to each sucker. At the time, the only rocket I had for lofting candy was a North Coast Rocketry, Phantom 4000. I honestly didn't

expect the kind of response I got from the kids. The next month, my son Kevon wanted to fly candy for the kids. This is when I realized how much the kids liked it. So we did a repeat. I believe it was the November launch 1999. At this point I knew I needed a better candy deploying machine.

Aerotech just came out with the G-Force. Seemed it had every thing I needed. 4" air frame, large upper section that could easily be turned into a payload section. So the G-Force went on my Christmas list. I think it took until February 2000, before the G-Force actually shipped. I got it and built it for the March 2000 launch. I built the G-Force essentially stock including building it with CA (Cyanoacrylate or Super Glue). I was a little concerned bout CA holding up to the stresses of H motors and how ever much candy I could pack into the rocket. So I did Epoxy the fore and aft centering rings to the body tube. To fly this rocket on H motors, meant that I did not install the motor block nor the motor hook. I used three 8-32 studs, epoxied along the motor mount tube, for motor retention. Next, I didn't glue the nose cone on. I ordered an extra parachute, added an eye bolt through the bulkhead of the payload section, and tied on a shock cord from the eye bolt to the nose cone. The grand plan was to have the rocket fly up, use motor ejection to pop the drogue parachute, and then hope that gravity would pull the nose cone off, deploy the candy, main parachute, and bring it safely back to earth. First launch in March, that is exactly what happened. I was tickled. Kids loved it!

Next flight though, was April. I decided that an Easter theme was in order. I made little parachutes for about 40 little plastic candy filled eggs. This time though the payload section drag separated at main engine burnout. Seems that at burnout the rocket undergoes high drag of a 4" body tube trying to slice through the air. The M&M filled Easter eggs slammed upwards into the back of the nose cone which pushed the nose cone off. Those heavy little Easter eggs were deployed into a 250mph air stream. Needless to say, scotch magic tape wasn't so magical and failed to hold the little eggs to the parachutes. Fortunately though, the kids saw the parachutes drift off with the wind. As they ran for the parachutes, little eggrenades started exploding on the ground where the kids were. Thankfully, not a single person was hit by falling eggs. It was kind of comical to see the explosion of M&Ms erupt from the ground where the eggs impacted.

Next launch I tightened up the nose cone more so it would not drag separate. It didn't work. Three launches in a row the nose cone drag separated spitting candy upward at 250mph. I finally did get the nosecone the correct tightness for gravity to pull the nose cone off. I remained concern though that one time the nose might not pull off and then a 6 pound, 5 foot tall, 4 inch rocket was going to come back to Earth under one parachute.

It was nearing Christmas and I put a BlackSky AltAcc2A altimeter on my Christmas list. The night before the December 2000 launch, my wife Sheryl gave me the AltAcc. I was up late that night reading directions and trying to get the AltAcc into the rocket. I could not get it to pass the ground test. So I got scarred and flew the G-Force with the motor as primary deployment and the AltAcc as backup. My fears were unfounded. The AltAcc worked perfectly. The motor ejection charge went off, the AltAcc detected parachute deployment and apogee. It deployed the drogue parachute. Gravity deployed the candy and then at 500 feet on the way down I could see the AltAcc fire the drogue parachute charge.

Next launch I picked a longer motor delay. This made the motor ejection charge a backup and allowed the AltAcc to act as primary drogue deployment device. I also tightened the nose cone tighter so it would not gravity separate. Perfection had been achieved. Apogee drogue chute fired on time, the motor backup charge could be seen firing and then the main parachute with the candy deployed at 500 feet.

Next launch I ran into difficulty. The drogue chute separated from the booster section. Luckily, it had a nice tumble recovery and the AltAcc still deploy the candy right on cue. I tied the two ends of the shock cord back together and sent it up for a second flight. Again the shock cord failed, but the AltAcc saved the payload section of the rocket. I replaced the shock cord before the next launch and cut off 3" of crumpled booster. The booster was now too short for the payload coupler to fit in. I ordered another 18" body section and two body tube couplers. I lengthened the Piñata Rocket and added a coupler inside the tail of the rocket. It was getting badly damaged on the landings.

This time, the Piñata Rocket had it's first failure of the AltAcc. For what ever reason the drogue igniter did not fire. Fortunately the motor backup still fired and the AltAcc main fired. Both Parachutes made it out and another safe recovery. Kids are loving all the candy they are getting. Flights have been perfect every since. So what is next? You'll see next month. Due to the Aerotech fire, 29mm H motors are getting very scarce. I bought a Pro 38 but it's kind of difficult to get a 38mm motor up a 29mm motor tube. I've built a 38 to 29 mm adapter. It hangs about 10 inches out the bottom of the rocket. It will fly on a Pro38 H110. It has 310NSec total impulse. It will be the biggest H I've ever flown. It should put the Piñata Rocket up 1300 feet. The kids will get a lengthy amount of time to anticipate the candy deployment. I can hardly wait. Is it rocket day yet?!?

Piñata photos are courtesy of Gregory Wong

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