Physics
Rocket Project Reflection
Even though there were a few good strategies that were associated with my rocket, failure was very apparent. I think the biggest disappointment was the conditioner bottles. The plastic was too thick and smooth so the epoxy would not attach the bottles. Even after we sanded them inside and out they would not conjoin. If I could change something about my rocket I definitely would have coordinated the types of bottle so that we wouldn’t have had the problem the appeared once we started working. I also have gone with my original parachute idea of cutting off the part of the bottle were you would have screwed the cap on. This would have allowed the cap to have a better spot to balance upon and so that the parachute could come out more freely. During our practice launch the parachute did not come out so our rocket plummeted to the ground causing the bend to be curvier. I believe this idea also would approve how arrow dynamic my whole rocket was.
Though not all was bad considering the circumstances. We did build our whole rocket in one day. Our overall ability to make it work was pretty amazing. I’m most proud of the plastic strips used to cover up the bumps created in the speedy process. After our practice launch we notice how disabled our rocket was and we kept on coming up with ideas but after brainstorming we eliminated all of our choices to the best thing possible for our rocket, to make it less curvy. We grabbed one of our extra bottles and cut out strips of plastic; once the strips were cut we glued them over our disappointing lumps. Also our rocket went the highest in the practice round out of our whole class at the same psi. I think our idea of the actual rocket’s build was definitely in question because the bottle sizes did not correlate with each other in the way we planned. I believe if we just used on size of bottles then there would not be the unexpected bumps that our rocket was burdened with. All in all this project was really fun and I would have never expected this in my high school experience. |
Physics Behind The RocketNewton’s First Law: When our rocket was at rest on the launch pad all of the forces were equal to each other because of the plug that was in the top of our two liter soda bottle. The plug was stopping the up and down opposite forces from reacting to the other in a violent way. Once the plug came out the upward force no longer had anything counteracting the force so it pushed up. Also the psi, which we put into the bottle (80 psi.) made the force stronger.
Newton’s Second Law: When the water and CO2 was put into the rocket it created pressure and made the rocket blast off of the Launchpad. Newton’s Third Law: The action that Newton’s third law refers to in this case would be the force, which the pressure put inside the bottle made stronger. This force is pushing on every side of the rocket with means of being released, and every force has an opposite one. That prevents the rocket from shooting off sideways. So when the nozzle is released from the rocket the upward motion happens because the downward motion has been eliminated. |