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 Christian Vatsaas holds the
Robo-Halloweener
(click to enlarge)
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One of our
favorite pastimes is trolling the aisles of various
discount stores and Dollar shops, looking objects that
can be quickly and inexpensively coverted into bizarre
looking rocket airframes. So I was not surprised to find
myself cruising the Walmart's Halloween aisle at Walmart
one autumn day when I found this robotic looking pumpkin
ornament. My mind immediately went to monster movies of
yore, such as Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla.
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Hmmm..
Halloweener. vs. Robo-Halloweener.
"Nah, I don’t have time", I thought, and strolled
away... but I kept circling back to look at the
pumpkins....
I left the store with the Robo-Halloweener head in hand.
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Design
Construction
Flight
Reconstruction
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 The
Original Halloweener and Bradley during his
"Fonzie" period
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Design
The standard design specifications for
Halloweer rockets are:
- A goofy pumpkin head (the original Halloweener
has had at least three different heads)
- Unusual halloween inspired fins (How inspired/
check out the halloweenies!)
- shockingly low-tech low cost construction
techniques.
The mechanical pumpkin head essentially called for the
design motif to be "gothic hardware horror".
exposed hardware would be the rule, as well as a rough
cast iron finish to compliment the specialized 'Wal-Mart
custom nose cone'.
For the carnard fins,
I first considered neck-bolts--but then opted something
like the ventilation stacks I first saw on German bunker
during a boyhood trip to Norway (the places our
cousins took us to play--I nearly got wedged in a too
small cave...).
I had some very elaborate plans for the large fins, but
time and weight caused me to go with something along the
lines of what you see
below. I also thought battle axes would make for a good
tranverse fin option.
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Click HERE
to Download the RockSim File |
As I am often travelling by air with my
rockets (or shipping them) in order to fly in Phoenix, Pack-ability is a
requirement. I would have to design the whole rocket to
break down into little pieces (There was no way I could
finish in time to ship it to the GHS 2005 launch. It would have to go
in my suitcase).
Making the airframe break down would be easy, but the
fins are always a difficult problem . I planned on using
a 4 inch airframe, which would be too small for the
method I used on the Hindrocket, so I noodled all kinds of
ideas. In the end, I used the method suggested by Brad,
which is the essentially the same method used on Eric
Burch’s L3 Fatboy and the Gila Monster from Hillbilly Rokitry.
The only variation I made was to use hose clamps to
attach the fins.
Click HERE for details on various types of
removable fins
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Construction
Fin lay up.
Since Brad upgraded the Halloweener with three dimensional fin details, I
wanted to do the same. I had a lot of cool ideas for
this, but only so much can be done in a short time frame.
To make three dimensional fins, I choose 1/8 inch plywood
for the center web, and 1/4" hardboard for the skeletal details. This
was a decision based mostly on whate material I had on
hand, If I could do it over, I would have used 1/8 for
the skeletal details as well, either way, the these fins
proved to be very sturdy, (refer to the first flight). The
main fins are made from a lay-up of a 1/8" sheet of
aircraft plywood, with 1/4" "skeleton on either
side. Even though all four pieces of skeleton were cut at
the same time, they took about an our to cut out on the
band saw.
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| The transverse wings are made from a
single ply of 1/4" aircraft plywood, and are made to
resemble a medieval Battlaxe |
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| This shows the fins installed with the
hose clamps holding the fins from being pulled out by
aerodyamic forces. I used a high speed zip-saw to cut the
slots for the hose clamps, but I would have to say the
results look more like I had used a dull spoon. |
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| As you can see from the above picture,
the wings were first painted orange, I then then had the
difficult task of masking off the web part of the wing.
This took about 2 1/2 hours. I did most of it while
watching my son's football game. |
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For and upper airframe adornment I added
these ventilation stacks made from PVC fittings. I had
originally planned to have neck bolts, but couldn't find
a suitable item off the shelf.
Finishing:
This was the perfect project for Rustoleum's hammer
finish paint. After painting, tube spirals are hardly
visible (the nature of this project almost demands minimal effort and attention to finishing details).
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| The Finished Robo Halloweener in all its
glory. I used rustoleum hammer finish silver to get a a
very similar finish to the pumpkin head. The green glow
is a photoshop enhancement (click photo to enlarge) |
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Flight
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