Bottle Rockets

Today we took our unit 8 test, focusing on power, work, and energy. It was a bit challenging, however it did prepare me and help me understand when it came to our bottle rockets. My partners Jantzen, Justin, and I made one bottle rocket today out of a two liter soda bottle that we brought from home. We decided that we would first attach a parachute to the top of the bottle so that when it came down, it would fall down slower, it would increase air resistance and hopefully help us to have our rocket stay in the air for five plus seconds. We used a rubbish bag, poked holes on the bottom and tried strings around those holes. We then hot glued it to the rocket and taped over it. We also thought it would be good to add fins to the rocket to help stabilize it when it was in the air. We cut out four fins and tried to make them as identical as possible so that our rocket would remain symmetrical. We hot glue gunned it to the rocket and made sure that everything was sturdy. We filled it up with water about one third of the way, It was only in the air for about two seconds so we knew we had to fix something. We knew that the parachute kept it from going really high and ultimately causing a lot of problems for us We then decided to make a nose cone to help it go higher and also it would provided us with a place to put the parachute. We attached the cone to the rocket putting the parachute inside and making it rather loose so that it would come up when it was at the top. Our next launch was successful and lasted 5.5 seconds, as everything went to plan. Our goal for tomorrow is to improve the quality of our equipment so that the rocket will be sturdier, stronger, durable, and ultimately a better bottle rocket.

Here is a picture of our bottle rocket when we just finished and were ready for our first launch.