Nitro Cellulose

Source Material

Chemical Formula for Nitrocellulose

2HNO₃+ C₆H₁₀O₅ → C₆H₈(NO₂)₂O₅ + 2H₂O

Basically ncle is the main compound in gun cotton and ping pong balls. "A typical formulation of celluloid might contain 70 to 80 parts nitrocellulose, nitrated to 11% nitrogen, 30 parts camphor, 0 to 14 parts dye, 1 to 5 parts ethyl alcohol, plus stabilizers and other agents to increase stability and reduce flammability."
So to create ncle

1. Nitric and Sulfuric acid
2. Nitrating agent (Both Nitric and Sulfuric Acids are Nitrators, so I don't know how that works out)
3. Camphor, C₁₀H₁₆O. Available here if the chemistry department does not have it.
4. Ethyl Alcohol possibly
   
5. Zinc oxide or Zinc Carbonate

Fabrication Guide to Celluloid
Quick Summary of the above link

1. Starting material of cotton, ramie, flax, jute, or wood pulp
2. Nitric and Sulfuric acid is added to starting material(cellulose)
3. Nitrate the cellulose to 11%, then rinse with water
4. Dry the ncle until there the water concentration is at 2% or less
5. Knead the ncle like bread and then add a 50% solution of camphor in alcohol
6. Add 1/15 as much Zinc oxide/Carbonate as ncle (It is mentioned that this must be added after the kneading. It is not mentioned whether or not this is necessary, so this could be dropped from the final formula.)
7. Molding/pressing. Press the Ncle into a desired shape.
   
8. Aging. The ncle has to be aged before fabrication, but since this will probably be molded from step 7, and also since the shape does not have to hold for a very long time in the rocket engine, it might not be necessary to age the ncle past an initial hardening.

And thats all I have on this subject.

This week, in chemistry, we learned about how some people do not mix well with others. On Wednesday, in the middle of class, an Asian student gets up and yells at another student shouting "say that again M^@#%#%&r". After much debate between the two students, the professor says that if this discussion is important that they should take it out side, to which another student replies, "I think they should." Since having the same people go crazy inst very entertaining (or maybe it is) on Friday the student in front of me decides its his time to go loco. After the third or fourth time the professor changes slides too fast for him to take a picture of the projection, to a room of absolute silence he clearly annunciates "Son of a &^*@%". This comment, while clearly illustrating the students view on how fast slides should be presented, was met only be the focused stare of the professor, who calmly told the rest of the class that he would be giving out the .ppt in an email later that day. Good news on that front though, the professor got back with the publisher:

I asked the publisher about distributing class slides to students. They side I am not supposed to do that unless I make some modification. So I think I will start distribute the slides since I always modifying for each class. But you all need to aware that the slides and all the class materials includign exams are for your usage of this class only. Last thing, I must remind you that slides are not a substitution of the textbook or lecture. You must "UNDERSTANDING" the content in slides to pass the exams.

Well, I think that cleared everything up. And now I'm off to go 'understanding' some orbital mechanics for SEDS.

SEDS Hybrid

This is the basic fin design that Jeremy found. I think it will take some work for our hybrid rocket fins to look this seamless, especially since no one on the max altitude team has any experience with carbon fiber. Personally, I wish we could go ahead and get started with all this stuff, rather that have people sit and talk about what they think is the best design, or what they have done previously. Every rocket is different I think, and no amount of talking can replace experimentation. Also, we only have launch windows once a month, so if anything goes wrong it will take a month before we can truly verify that we have solved the problem. Overall, I'm not really satisfied with this project, I think that we should already be planning tests of the ping pong ball motor. The order I think is best for design would be to work on the motor first, get a 25:1 ration out of it, then to buy the electronics and parachute system, and then finally get the carbon fiber body and fit all those components into it. Right now there is no progress on anything, only discussions about rockets. Thats fine and all, but by meeting 4 something should start happening aside from simply 'forming groups'.