Outdoor Model Rocket - Remake of the Iconic Saturn V SpaceCraft

I was recently watching a video that I saw a while ago, Model Rocket Battle by Dude Perfect (Link to the video, its a great watch). In watching the dudes launch rockets in the air, their infectious joy and spirit got me thinking just how hard would it be to make one for myself, and if I did just how much fun and how high would it go. I got to thinking and started looking at what model rockets require, getting some help from teachers and peers, and came up with a game plan to make one. The following is the process of making everything.

To design the rocket, you will need:

1. A Computer
2. AutoDesk Fusion 360
3. *Optional* - An iPhone for the last step (Which isn't needed)

To launch the rocket:

1. A 3D Printer
2. Size E Rocket Motor
3. Model Rocket Launching Kit

While you can essentially make a model rocket in whatever sort of “look” you want, hand picking every detail to maximize flight best belongs in the hands of seasoned aerospace engineers, so I decided to follow the work of some of the best engineering minds in history and recreate the Saturn V Rocket. 

If you're unfamiliar with the Saturn 5, it is the most powerful rocket ever flown successfully, taking 24 men to the moon in one piece through triumphant trips. In addition, it also was the spacecraft used to launch the Skylab Space Station. 

Simply put, the Saturn 5 is one of the best aeronautical engineering and design marvels to ever be constructed, so how amazing would it be to make a model for yourself (scaled down of course). The silhouette of the spacecraft will be the same as that in real life, but the mechanics of how it runs will be simplified heavily, being powered and flown via a Size E Rocket Motor. Aside from that however, the culminating project will be a similar and very, very cool replica of the impressive Saturn 5.

The very first step in actually making a Saturn 5 model rocket is to create the main frame. To start up on that, we are going to work our way up from each chamber to the next. In other words, the build will be made in a modular manor, where each new segment is layered and built upon the last. The first segment is also the biggest, at a height of 360 mm. The outer diameter of the circle that we are going to extrude is 54 mm. However, before you make that extrusion, you need to make a smaller circle within that circle, with its own diameter of 29 mm, which is the desired size to fit around a Size E Rocket Motor really well. Once you have this ring shape, go ahead and extrude that outer most part by 360 mm, creating a hollow tube that is perfect for the first step.

With the first and main compartment done, we can now move onto the second one. The process that is used to make the shapes hereon out will be the same, where we extrude up with a tapered angle and on that resulting circular profile, then extrude up a new cylinder. As for compartment 2, follow these steps:

-‎ Extrude up another 55 mm circle on top of the compartment you just made by 30 mm up at a taper angle of -16 (The taper angle is the little circular wheel on an arc that you see.

-‎ On that funnel shape, simply type E (The shortcut for extrude) and click on the circular top profile. You will want to extrude up by 70 mm. Fun Fact, in Fusion, if an extrusion creates a closed shape like we see here, you don't need to make a new sketch, you can just extrude as is.

With those 2 easy steps out of the way, you have successfully finished the second compartment of the Saturn V. The rest of the "Compartment" steps all follow the same process just with different values, but just for organizational sake I decided to individualize them all.

-‎ On top of the 70 mm cylinder you just made, extrude the profile up 44 mm with a taper of -9.4

-‎ Then extrude the new profile up 28 mm.

-‎ On top of the 28 mm cylinder you just made, extrude the profile up 15 mm with a taper of -30.7

-‎ Then extrude the new, tiny profile up 50 mm.

-‎ Finally, on top of that skinny rod, extrude up once more by 4 mm and a taper angle of -25.

To make the 4 Fin and Thruster combos you will first start by flipping the rocket upside down and making the sketch on the bottom ring profile.

Once you have started the sketch, create a circle somewhere to the right of the rocket. For now, the size and location of the circle doesn't matter, as we will define/constrain everything in a bit. Look at the "Constrain" menu at the top and click on the first one in the subset, which should be the Horizontal/Vertical constrain (It looks like 2 lines on top of 2 horizontal lines with red dashes on them). From there, click the center of YOUR NEWLY DRAWN CIRCLE and the origin of the rocket. You should notice that the circle is now perfectly lined up horizontally (up and down) from the rocket. Next up we will use the 2nd constrain open, coincident (Which looks like 2 the bottom left corner of a square). Once you've selected the option, click the center of your circle again and the outer ring of the rocket, which will snap the circle to the rocket edge. Lastly, select the 3rd option, which is tangent, and select first your circle and then the inner circle, which will as the name suggests make the two circles tangent to one another.

Your sketch is now complete, so flip the object view around to appear as a top down view of your sketch. You will then extrude BOTH profiles (The rocket splits the circle up, so make sure you select both parts), by a factor of -45 (Make sure it's negative so it goes the right way. You will notice that the extrusion turns red because it things you are trying to make a cut. To fix this, look at the bottom of the menu and change "Cut" to "Join". Finally, make the taper angle -16.

With the thrusters done, we need to make the fins. Start a new sketch on the front plane, which intersects the red and blue axis. Click on your line command and to the right of the whole structure make a very general trapezoid shape, like the one you see in the attached images. We are now going to constrain and dimension the trapezoid. Select the coincident tool and constrain the bottom line of the trapezoid to the origin. Then click the dimension function (Or type D for the shortcut) and select the left most line, and make it 26 mm. Next line is the bottom line, dimension it again and make it 25 mm. Then define the right vertical line (Not the slanted one), and make it 6 mm. The next step, and it's a bit weird, it to click and drag the leftmost line to the origin, which is the distance between the trapezoid and the origin, and make it 27 mm.

The sketch is now done, and we have to extrude the shape. Make the distance 2 mm, and then change the operation to join once again. The last little thing you have to change is the direction from "One Side" to "Symmetric", and change the measurement from half length to whole length. The fin is now done.

The final step is to use the circular pattern to make the other 3. Click on the create pull down menu, go down to pattern and select circular. Change "Object Type" to "Features". Then, look down to the bottom right of the screen to your timeline, and select the two most recent extrusions (Blue squares), which represent your thruster and fin. Then click the Axis tab, flip the rocket over again to access the hole, and select the blue rod which acts as the complete center of the whole model. The last step is to change your quantity from 3 to 4.

Congratulations, your model is completely done!!!

While the actual model of the rocket is done, Fusion's default material and color is a basic grayish matte sort of thing. It would be a disservice to the legendary Saturn V if we left it looking like this, so it's time to color and decorate the rocket. This is the chance for you to get creative and personalize the rocket to your liking. I chose to stay close to the original and pay homage to its simplisicty, so I attached a shiny metal coating to the fins, thrusters, first taper and topmost cylinder. To the rest of the model, I applied a nice clean white metal to everything. The final product is aesthetic and beautiful, but still sleek in its directness

(Click to enlarge the second image. There, the rocket is in the design workspace rather than the render tab)

If you want to make the most of the amazing outdoor model you just made, then 3D printing it and attaching the E Rocket Motor is right up your alley. I didn't happen to do this, but you definitely could. Attached are two videos, one helping you set up a model rocket launch and one of another Saturn V model being launched itself. The videos are not my own, just attached to hopefully ease and aid with the process of launching your rocket yourself.

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Setting Up a Launch - Click Here for Video

Saturn V Launch - Click Here for Video

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Now if you don't happen to have access to a material or two that are needed for flight to occur, you can still bring your model to life, albeit in a less exciting way, with only an iPhone.

Augmented Reality is basically changing the space that you are in, and luckily for us both Fusion and iPhone have features that make it possible for us to do so. What you are going to want to do is open the File tab on Fusion and scroll down to Export. Once you are in export, click on the dropdown menu "Type", which opens up a bunch of options for what type of file you want to save. What we want is the last option, USD File. USD is a widely recognize AR file type that is perfect for what we want. (To see what I mean, click to enlarge the second photo, which is a screenshot of what the menu looks like).

Once you have saved the file as a USD file, make sure you get it to your iPhone through a cloud file, airdrop or whatever method works for you. Once accepted, go to the pre-installed files app that comes with every iPhone and find the file of your Saturn V. Once located, you can simply open it up (No additional apps are needed), and it will pull up a model of your rocket in the space around you! You have to first move the camera around to calibrate everything, but once the model is placed you change its size, location and more. Congratulations, you have officially brought your rocket to life completely free of charge!

- Thank you for taking the time to follow along with my Instructable here today. I hope you maybe learned something from what I put out today, whether it be a fact about the space missions in our lifetime, or maybe a fun project idea that you now wish to partake. Regardless of what it is, all I can say is thank you very much for sticking through with it until the end, and watching my idea come to life. If you like what you saw here, please feel more than welcome to check out my other Instructables on my page, or just enjoy the work I put out right here. A like or comment is always appreciated, but your time today was more than enough :) - Lorik