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Psion Palmtop for Water Rocket Applications

This is my Psion palmtop while editing the SEAM page:

General note taking
Instead of writing my launch data on paper, I type them on the site into the Psion. Any necessary calculation can be made in any application. In Word I can add tables as well as sketches.

Time Measurement
A regular stopwatch has the disadvantage that only one or two times can be taken per measurement. While launching water rockets, it is nice to be able to track multiple events.
Example:
1) Launch 2) Sustainer leaves the booster 3) Apogee 4) Begin of deployment 5) Chute fully open 6) rocket is back to earth

Tracking multiple events with the Psion is easy: it has a built-in voice recorder which records directly on its internal memory. I announce all major events of the flight. At home I transfer the Psion voice file to the PC. Here I can measure with high accuracy the duration of every period of the flight using almost any sound tool. Disadvantage of this method: one gets the numbers only later at home, not on the launch site.
Of course the recording (MP3 file, 156kB) holds much more information than the bare times, you can comment anything what happens and also catch eventual bursts of emotions .... ;-))

If you want instantaneous, but less exact timing results, there are freeware stopwatches with multiple lap times available.

Altitude Calculations
Calculating the formulas for my SEAM system is easy with the built in Sheet application. I write all flight data into this launch sheet right on the field.

Explicit WR Calculations
I am working on some add-ons on Bruce Berggren's EXPLICIT excel calculations. The basic sheet works well already. So, if I think in the field of a new combination to launch, I can do the simulation of the time to apogee in seconds ( I mean: quickly) with the Psion on my knees.

 

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Stand / Last Revision: 11.11.00

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