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That's probably the most popular book for introductory Materials Science classes at the undergraduate level. "The Science and Engineering of Materials" by Askeland and Haddleton is also pretty popular. You can get an old edition of either of those books for pretty cheap. I see a 5th editio...

It's not that simple. Larger fins will cause more drag, which slows down the ascent, limits the altitude, and thereby shortens the flight time. But if you don't have large enough fins, the rocket may not be stable. You want the rocket's center of gravity (CG) to be ahead of the center of pressure (C...

The bottle that you pressurize (the one that you pump up with air). I haven't seen the rules from this year, but the answers to your adhesive questions should be in there. In the past, using tape, silicone glue, etc, was fine to bond to the pressure vessel. Adhesives that damage the structure of the...

What do you guys think will be the best method to obtain the bonus? Electronic or mechanical steering? The way I see it, we can either fix the frame of the vehicle to turn or use a servo I've had the thought that having a steering servo that you can adjust electronically to trim the vehicle could e...

Be mindful that you'll be putting a large amount of current through that resistor (although for a short period of time) - so you'll probably want to go with ceramic resistors, wirewound resistors, etc - something rated to a decently high wattage. You'd likely burn out 1/4 watt carbon film resistors ...

Sure you can. Put on some sort of input device that the Arduino reads that can "trim" the device. You could use a series of buttons to key in a "trim" value, or add a potentiometer and read its analog value and correspond that to some sort of "trim" or "fine-tune&q...

Brushless motors are great, but a brushed motor is just fine for this event. We're using a brushed motor and battery directly connected and getting times in the 1.75 to 1.80 sec range. We have been the fasted car at both invitationals so far this year. Sometimes simpler is better. As one data point...

That question cannot actually be answered as written. You are given the masses of the two bodies and the mean separation between them. The mean separation is equal to the semimajor axis of an ellipse. In order to determine the tangential velocity, though, you need to know the position along the elli...

I used to use both Elmer's wood glue (just a small amount, applied with a toothpick) and CA. Wood glue was good for when I wanted to make adjustments before the glue dried/cured - for me this was mostly building the wings and making sure the ribs were straight. CA was good when I didn't want that ti...

Actually, that's the reason you have to dig through to find them - they're prohibited items, although listings often slip through. See here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201232010 Examples of Prohibited Listings Portable, handheld laser products, such as: Lasers pointe...