Well, after about a year of playing around (and spending too much money on parts, but don't tell my wife) we finally flew a converted Estes "Big Daddy" VidROC using an X-10 wireless video camera (ww.x10.com).  We had three nearly-flawless flights, and I've posted video from two of them below (we forgot to push record on the camera for the first flight, doh!) along with a few photos of the rocket itself.

There she is, in all her glory.  You can see the camera pod on the left-hand side of the nosecone, along with the white bungee core that holds the nosecone to the rocket body when separated. The whole point of this arrangement is to keep the camera pointed down as the rocket descends on the parachute.

This shot shows the interior of the nosecone assembly, with the camera itself (under the shroud) and the camera battery pack (under a styrofoam shock absorber). The camera was disassembled using the instructions from VideoRocketry.com. The whole assembly is hot-glued into place; I didn't want to lose the picture due to vibration during launch.  The camera is powered by two Duracell Type-J medical device batteries.  The antenna and camera electronics are inside the nosecone and mounted with putty for shock absorption and easy removal.  What you see hot-glued in place in this picture is the batteries and an external power supply plug (for testing).

This last shot shows the X-10 camera receiver unit, mated to two lantern batteries to make it portable.

The modifications to the Bid Daddy made me worry a bit about stablilty, especially the additional weight in the nosecone moving the CG of the rocket forward.  As it turns out, the original Big Daddy design is close to unstable because the CG is too far to the rear, adding the camera actually helped to improve the stability.  You can get the RockSim simulation file here.  Note that with the added weight of the camera the best we can expect with a D12 engine is about ~190 feet.

The video was captured on an old (read "don't care much if the kids drop it") 8mm video camera.  The X-10 is video only, no audio, which is too bad - I'd like to hear the whoosh of liftoff.

Enough already!  Did it fly? See for yourself:

First Flight (~30 second video) :   Real Format  Windows Media

Great flight, really nice arc on liftoff and you can briefly see me and the kids as the ground pulls away.  Would have been nice if I had focussed the camera better, though.  Landing is not so great since the nosecone spins on the shock cord, you can tell the ground is twirling below you but that's about it.  We used an Estes D12-3 engine which gets the rocket about as high as you want it to go, you can see the camera start to go out of range at apogee.

Second Flight (~22 seconds video) :  Real Format  Windows Media

Not so nice a liftoff, but still a nice flight. The landing was near a parking lot and you can see the painted lines spinning as the rocket descends.

UPDATE 9/19/03 - The End of the Big Daddy!!

Of course, you knew this couldn't end well, right?

Final Flight (~22 seconds video) :  Real Format  Windows Media

A spectacular liftoff and a gorgeous flight.  Unfortunately the shock cord broke and the nose cone (with the camera) had it's fall stopped by the asphalt of a parking lot. 

So what's next?  Well, undaunted by the demise of the first Big Daddy VidRoc my son decided to sit down and design the Big Daddy VidRoc 2.  A copy of one of the "engineering drawings" he made is shown below:

He drew in multiple stages so that we can get the rocket to a higher altitude despite the weight of the camera and batteries. Hey, that's a good idea!  So I went out and bought two of the Estes Big Daddy kits, all I need to do now is order the new camera.....