Final Post!! :)

The rocket bottle lab was a very fun and creative way of learning physics one of our favorite projects ever. As we learned how to create a water bottle rocket, we also learned the physics that went along with it such as gravity, and aerodynamics. During the project we came up with many different ideas with how the rocket would be constructed. Our idea that we agreed upon was to create rocket that had eight small wings that was evenly spaced. We used another soda bottle for our nose cone and tried to cut a trash bag into a parachute. The bigger the parachute the longer the bottle would stay in the air. The only problem with that was when the parachute got bigger it was very difficult to fit in the nose cone. We had some trouble with trying to come up with a way to have that big parachute and have it deploy. Our designs seemed to be very good, but putting it together was the hard part. Our good launches ended up going very high and we think that the height of the rocket was greatly affected by the type of wings we created and how we constructed the rocket with them. We created our wings with a very light piece of wood. Ducking taping the wood kept the wood stable and very hard.

Having a consistent launch every time was very difficult. The wings kept falling off when they hit the ground and sometimes the launches were a bust and didn't go as high as it did before. When we did have a good launch everything was in sync, the timing of the parachute opening and the nose cone falling off was perfect. When we had bad launches it was due to our pumps, and our parachute not opening which was due to construction of the rocket. If we needed to change things we would of probably used a better nose cone and a bigger one. If we had a bigger nose cone our parachute would of been able to fit easier and hopefully it would have deployed. All in all this project was very fun and creative, we should definitely do something similar to this again.

Launch Day 5

Today was our last launch date. We needed at least a air time of 10 secs today with the same modifications as day number four. Today we decided to make a new rocket with the same modifications but with a new bottle because our old bottle was warped and we thought something might be wrong with it. So today we added wings and a bigger parachute to our new bottle. Our launch fuel was laundry detergent with water today and the weather conditions today were very bad. It was very rainy and windy today so that affected our launch. Our first launch we did was slightly successful. Our rocket flew very high in the air with an airtime of 7 secs but while in the air our parachute did not open. We thought that when we put the rocket on the fuel pump we pushed the nose cone on to tight. So we went back to class to make better modifications to our rocket. On our second launch we made sure that our nose was looser so it would be able to come off. With that being said our second launch was a complete failure as our rocket flew on top of the auditorium roof and got stuck. We will try again tomorrow making two sets of rockets and hopefully one of them work.

Launch #4

Today we launched our water bottle rocket with different modifications. Today we needed to have a airtime of at least 5 seconds. We used the same wooden fins from our previous launch. We didnʻt want to change too much because of the great success we had on our third launch. On our third launch a couple of our fins came off the rocket when it hit the ground, even though the parachute worked well. This time we decided to change our parachute. We wanted a bigger chute so that it would slow our rocket down even more and keep it in the air longer. So we took a Kirkland trash bag and taped it to our rocket under the nose cone, similar to the way we taped our last parachute. Everything seemed to look good, but when we launched we were confused. Our rocket had barely gotten off the ground, thus the parachute didnʻt activate. Resulting in our rocket to land on the ground and a couple fins broke off. So back up to the class we went. We glued the fins back on and then re-attached our old parachute because we feared the new one added too much weight to our rocket. Again we launched our rocket only to have the same conclusion, it barely got off the ground. I think the pumps might have been the problem today. Although we did learn a very effective parachute technique that we will apply to our next launch. Next time we will try the same pump we used on launch #3 and we are going to use a new bottle, it seems the hot glue has warped our bottle and maybe even created a few tiny holes.We have some work to do, Back to the drawing board...

Launch # 3

Launch Day 3

Today we launched our water bottle rocket with different modifications. Today a parachute was required and a 3 sec flight time was required also. Our second launch that we did was a complete failure because of the type of material that we used to make our wings so today instead of a heavy piece of wood we found a very light wood. We cut 8 small wings about the same size and covered them in duck tape after (preventing the wood to soak water making the wood heavier). After hot glueing the wings on we needed to put a parachute on. With the time limit given we just got a plastic bag and taped the plastic bag to the top of our bottle. As we launched our rocket seemed to be perfect, our flight time exceeded the time limit of the requirement given to us today (flight time 18 secs) and our parachute opened will in the air. What we will next strategize is how to create a better parachute so our flight time would be even longer and maybe make some adjustments to the wings. We may also fix and find a better nose cone besides the top of another water bottle so our launch could be better. We were very happy today knowing that our parachute opened and our rocket worked perfectly.

Launch Day 2

Today was launch day number two. Adding special specifications to our rocket, in hopes of a longer and better flight for our water bottle rocket. Today we constructed a nose cone out of another bottle and wings approximatly 4 3/10 cm apart out of wood. As we launched our rocket we went to about 55 psi. Our rocket today didnt seem to go as planned as it stayed in the air for a short 3-4 seconds adding nothing to our previous flight time on day one. We realized that wood for the rocket is not a good material to use for the wings. The wood is too heavy and soaks up water which makes the rocket heavier. We need to find a better material such as plastic so that our flight time will be greater than today. Better modifications to our rocket will be thought out to make our bottle rocket fly higher.

First Launch Summary

Today was our first launch without any excess materials to help our bottle float in the air. We learned how to launch our water rocket and how to prepare our water bottle rocket so that we can get our rocket in flight.(video 3) We added around 1/4-1/3 of water into our water bottle. We pumped our bottle around 38 psi (less than 40) as shown in the video 1. Our first launch launched our water bottle rocket into the air for about 3-4 seconds.(video 2) For a bottle rocket, 3-4 seconds without any excess materials seemed pretty decent. The only problem that we need to try and fix is to shoot the bottle rocket straight into the air and not at an angle. The straighter the rocket goes the maximum height our rocket could reach. As shown in video 2 the bottle rocket goes decently straight into the air. We need to find a permanent strategy so the bottle rocket always goes straight into the air. Creating a more stable rocket might be a strategy but we will figure out whats best when we start adding our different types of material to our bottle rocket.