Although I love building rockets, it's not cheap, and it's also a long and annoying process to buy rocket parts, motors, and building supplies. But I think there's a simple solution: 3D printing! All you have to do is design some parts on your computer, and they can be printed right at your house, for a fraction of the cost. I recently acquired a 3D printer, so I figured I'd try making a prototype. The biggest thing I wanted to test was whether or not it could fly, as one potential downside of 3D printing parts is that the plastic is a lot denser than commercially used cardboard/paper tubes, which might make the rocket very heavy.
Here are all of the files that I designed and printed for this rocket (b6 is the type of motor I used): https://cad.onshape.com/documents/3e2b239fb5503561cb376f18/w/e5ba021ccef349fb7d84def6/e/ad0adba315bdd9460d5b36d7?renderMode=0&uiState=66aadf0b2339e021f0b87053
At the bottom, you can click through to see what each piece looks like.
After assembling the rocket simply using some super glue, here's what it looks like:
Below is a video of the test flight. I used a b6-0 rocket motor: B6-0 Engines - Estes Rockets
Everything went well, except the parachute ejected too early, so the rocket spiraled down at the end. However, that was expected with the type of motor I used (0 second delay, meaning the parachute ejected as soon as the motor stopped burning). My main goal was to see how it flew, and it flew well, so this was definitely a successful prototype and launch: