Final Blogpost

At last we finally reached our last blog post for our bottle rocket! It all started on our first launch day with just a naked Sierra Mist bottle. The bottle had no modifications whatsoever...it was just a test to see how the rocket would launch. We filled our bottle up with 500 mL of water and launched it. Our bottle remained in the air for 4 seconds. For our next launch, we made modifications to our rocket. We elongated our bottle by cutting off the top of one bottle and putting it on the on top of the other, using this website for guide: www.lnhs.org/hayhurst/rockets/. On our launch day we filled our bottle up with 500 mL of water. It stayed in the air for only 2.6 seconds. We were extremely disappointed. We came to the conclusion that our fins were made very messily and contributed to the rocket not going very far up. After that we took our fins off our bottle and decided to make better and sturdier fins. We used the same website above and made fins with lips that rested flat on the bottle. By creating fins like that it made them sturdier, allowing the bottle to go up higher during the launch. We also added a nose cone, using a cone from Sport’s Authority. Inside we attached the parachute, that was 20 inches in diameter. We had 12 strings that were also 20 inches in length. Our third launch day was the test of three seconds. We filled our bottle up with 500 mL of water again. Our rocket stayed in the air for 7.87 seconds! We were so happy!! We came to the conclusion that if we added more water and more pressure for the next launch that it will reach 10 seconds. For our fourth launch day of five seconds, we put 700 mL of water to fuel it. We pumped air into it, but our plastic tube wasn’t connecting to the pump properly only allowing half the air that was allotted. The weather was very rainy and windy. Our rocket only stayed in the air for 5.1 seconds. We were really sad, but we were sure that the weather and the pump affected our rocket.

On our final launch day, the goal was to have our rocket stay in the air for at least 10 seconds. In the beginning we were confident that our rocket would make the minimum requirement, but due to bad weather conditions our rocket was not able to make the 10 second cut. We launched our rocket 4 times on the last day in the pouring rain and gusty winds. Our first launch had 550 mL of water in it, but was unsuccessful with a time of 3.5 seconds. This was because our parachute wasn’t able to deploy since our nose cone didn’t come off. For our next launch we filled the rocket with 500mL and before launch time, we dried the sides of the rocket and cone to ensure that our nose cone would come off. This time our launch was more successful with a time of 8.9 seconds. Since we came so close our second time, we hoped that doing another launch would bring even more success. We attempted two more times after, but sadly both times were less than our 8.9, having a time of 5.45 and 2.6 seconds. After those fails, we were satisfied with our time and decided to take the 8 points.

This day brought an end to our water bottle rocket project. We thought our rocket had a good design and was a good attempt for our first rocket. Our final rocket was elongated using two Sierra Mist bottles, had 4 manila fins covered in duct tape, a parachute and nose cone. For us, these modifications worked in our favor and were definitely not wasted parts. As a duo, we decided that if we had to change something about our design and do it again, we probably would’ve added in a weight to the top of the nose cone. This website: www.lnhs.org/hayhurst/rockets/ suggested that we add a piece of clay the size of a golf ball at the top, but we ended up choosing not to. This may or may not have affected the outcome of our final rocket piece, but in the end we were happy with our end result and actually learned a lot about making rockets :)

P.S. This is a replacement photo since our video isn't uploading. In this picture though is our final rocket with all its modifications ready for launching.