Wooden dragster is designed to have a CO2 cartridge inserted into the slot on the top.

Materials:

• Main body/chassis: Pinewood
• Wheels: Plastic: PETG or PLA
  • From kit but printable files included
• Axle: Metal nails

My dragster is made out of primarily wood. The base of the dragster is a block of wood that is slightly curved on top to lower drag, the curve comes to a point in the front of the dragster. It kind of looks like a cheese wedge. The back of the dragster is beveled on all 4 sides to hopefully reduce vacuum forces. There is a hole drilled on top of the wood towards the back of the dragster to hold the co2 canister. The hole is angled at 15 degrees towards the front of the dragster. There is a small inset on the end of the hole, that goes to the back of the dragster for the co2 canister’s nozzle to sit. There are black plastic wheels that are nailed a little above the bottom of the dragster at 3.22 MM up and 54.7mm from the front, another set of wheel are placed 3.22MM up and 17.5mm from the back. My idea to reduce drag is to use a curved edge to not have a flat face on the front. I am creating it out of wood because it is relatively light and is easy to work with. I also chose wood because it is the most used material for dragsters, and it has a good proven success rate. Furthermore, I need to do the math on finding the right angle to provide the best downforce to thrust vector for the co2 cartridge. I am using metallic nails to attach the wheels to the chassis of the dragster to make sure the wheels are on straight (resulting in the car going straight) and to create a low friction pivot point for the plastic wheels to rotate around. The dragster is symmetrical to hopefully eliminate drag discrepancies between the right and left sides of the dragster. I designed my rocket the way I did for a few reasons. The big reason is that it is easy to manufacture; there are no complicated curves or holes in the design, resulting in the possible manufacturing of the dragster with the tools that are accessible to me. I am using subtractive manufacturing, unlike additive manufacturing that is 3d printing, which adds plastic layers on top of each other to create an object, I am subtracting material from a wood block. I needed the design to be possible with subtractive manufacturing and within the tolerances that wood can handle. Another reason I chose to design my rocket dragster the way I did was to reduce the amount of post-processing needed to be completed before it was ready to launch. The co2 canister is angled in a way to provide down thrust without the use of a spoiler or wing, while also providing forward thrust to the dragster. I also designed the dragster to have low drag, which resulted in a cheese wedge look to the car. A reason why I designed the dragster to be thick was to house the co2 canister and keep it in place. I also designed it to use the wheels that came with the kit because I didn't want to manufacture my own wheels, and the wheels were what I needed them to be for this project. One of the most important design features that I added was for the chassis to be strong enough to withstand impacts but still look cool.