Blast Off!

           

Today we began our final day of rocket launching. We finally perfected our rocket design and were able to get a 10 second rocket!

Day 1: The first couple of days we did a lot of practice launches. The first day was just with a bottle learning about fuel (water).

Day 2: On day two we attached another bottle to the top of the body of our rocket which made the rocket more stable. We added a cone for the nose of the rocket which helped it go higher. We also added fins which helped with the stability of the rocket. Finally we tried added a parachute which sort of worked.

Day 3: Today we attached new fins which were stronger because we covered them in boxing tape. We made a new parachute which consisted of two parachutes attached together and then to the bottle with string. We also added putty to the inside nose of our cone which helped with stability and helped the rocket go straight. We ended up with an average launch time seven seconds with our max air time being 10.3 seconds!

Materials/Parts of our rocket and reasons why

Cone: We used a regular cone for the nose of our rocket. The cone reduced air resistance on the way up which allowed the rocket to reach its maximum vertical distance.

Putty: We placed putty in the inside tip of the cone which added mass to the cone and helped to make sure that our rocket would come straight down.

Cardboard: We used cardboard to make our wings. The wings help to stabilize our rocket, they catch the wind and help the rocket fly straight.

Parachutes (String & Plastic Bags): We built a parachute using plastic bags and attaching them to the rocket. We ended up having two parachutes one attached to the body of the rocket and then one attached above the first parachute. The parachutes increased air resistance when the rocket was traveling downwards to increase the hang time of our rocket.

Bottles (2L): We used 2 two-liter bottles for the body of our rocket which decreased air resistance traveling upwards which allowed our rocket to reach its maximum vertical distance. We cut the top and bottom off of the top bottle off while we left the bottle bottle completely intact. The longer body of the rocket increased the rockets rotational inertia and made the rocket more stable. This helps our bottle to not spinn our and travel in a straight path.

Tape (Duct & Boxing): We used tape to pretty much attach everything. We attached our two bottles together using boxing tape which make a strong attachment. We also according to Mia "ghetto laminated" our wings which assure they would stay strong and wouldn't get wet. We used duct tape to connect our wings to the body of our rocket which assured that our wings were securely attached to the body of our rocket.

Reflection

This project was very fun but also stressful! The final launch date came at us so fast I kinda freaked out near the end. I learned a lot about the physics that go into a bottle rocket. I learned that the water (fuel) combined with the air pressure from the pump created so much pressure that when released it launched our rocket high into the sky! I learned that things like an elongated body, fins, and putty help to stabilize the rocket during flight. The nose cone helped to decrease air resistance on the way up which increased the maximum launch hight of the rocket. Then things like parachutes helped to increase air resistance on the way down which helped to increases the total hang time of our rocket. I feel SOOOOOO bad because during one of our trials I was pumping the rocket while my partner didn't have the launcher fully in place. It hit him and I still feel so bad even though he said he's ok SORRY TOM! Our ten second launch was crazy when we launched the rocket it went super high then got carried by the wind when the parachutes deployed. It went so far that our rocket actually landed on the sidewalk outside of campus!