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.

Blog post #6: Launch Day: Test of 10 Seconds

Today was our final launch day for our water bottle rocket. This was the final frontier. Our initial goal was to make the 10-second minimum (and still have a lot of time to spare) so we could get the 10 extra points. Sadly, due to the strong winds and rain and a couple launches later, our new goal became just making the 10 seconds because we were worried that the weather would prevent our rocket from performing as it’s supposed to. By the end of the period and 4 launches later, our rocket still wasn’t able to reach the 10-second minimum. It did come close though with 8.9 seconds. Our main problem was getting our parachute to deploy. Because the rain was getting everything wet, our cone stuck to the rocket and wouldn't let our parachute deploy. The weather really downed our mood, so after our fourth launch we were basically done for the day. We felt that 8.9 seconds was still a respectable time, and even though it wasn’t the 10 we hoped for, our idea and process of making the rocket was on the right track. Getting the rocket concept is what really mattered. Our blog post includes this video of our best launch that day with the time of 8.9 seconds. We’d like to thank the wind this time because it allowed our rocket to stay in the air longer than it would’ve without any wind at all.

On a positive note: we’re glad we covered our fins with duct tape because it prevented them from getting all muddy on the field. We also found this website (http://txsnapper.eezway.org/txsnapper/tips.html) helpful because tip #15 said to make sure you launch when the humidity's low and there's no chance of rain. On the other hand, tip #27 says to practice in all types of conditions....including rain.

Launch Day #2: First Modified Rocket

Today was our second day launching our bottle rockets! Our first launch, we used just a “naked” bottle. Our launch was good, the bottle remained in the air for about four seconds. Next we looked at this website: http://www.lnhs.org/hayhurst/rockets/ and used it to create our fins and to elongate our rocket.  We decided to use four fins on our bottle rocket. We duct taped the fins on and then headed to Konia to launch. After launching the rocket twice, we noticed it wasn’t too stable and it stayed up in the air shorter than our naked bottle. We came to the conclusion that we didn’t put enough pressure and the fins weren’t sturdy enough. So to help that, we are going to make the fins sturdier and make sure they’re more secure on our rocket.

Launch Day #4: Test of 5 Seconds

 

For our physic’s blog post this week, we are very proud to say that our parachute was successful on our fourth launch day. We met the minimum 5 second requirement by a fourth of a second, with our final time being 5.25 seconds. On the other hand, our launch wasn’t as successful as we hoped because it was more than 2 seconds shorter than our 3 seconds test launch last Friday. We hoped that this was due to the weather since it was very rainy and windy. Since our time wasn’t as good as we hoped, we decided that we should try to reinforce the fins in case that was a contribution to the problem. We found this website: http://home.comcast.net/~timhesterberg/HowToRockets/HowToRockets.html, and it taught us how to secure and duct tape the fins in order to make it more sturdy. Another reason why our rocket may have not went as good as planned is because we put 200 mL more water than we did the first time and pumped a lot more air into it. We thought that more air and more water would make the rocket go higher and faster, but this experiment concluded that this is not a correct theory.

Launch Day #3: Test of 3 Seconds

Today was our third launch day. The requirements were a launch that was three seconds minimum including a parachute. Using this website: http://lnhs.org/hayhurst/rockets/ we created the parachute for our rocket. We also made better fins using this website. For our nose cone, we used a cone and cut it so it just fits over the top of the bottle and attached it on the inside of the bottle with tape. When we launched our rocket, we were very scared it wouldn’t work. Surprisingly our launch lasted seven seconds! It would’ve been eight but it accidently landed into the back of some teacher’s truck. We noticed that Kory and Pono’s rocket went super high and lasted ten seconds. Rachelle and I think that if we put a little more water, as well as air pressure that our rocket will last ten seconds and we won’t have to make any changes.

The First Launch Day

Today we did our first ever rocket bottle launch on Konia field! Since it was only a test-day, we just used our “naked” 2-L soda bottle..in other words a rocket with nothing special attached to it; for example fins, a nose cone or a parachute. The first thing we did was fill up our empty soda bottle with 500 mL of water. When we got to setting up our rocket, it was a little scary because even though we knew what to except, the suspense was intimidating. We found it was a lot easier to attach our rocket than expected (all we had to do was clamp it so it was secure to the base and attach the string), so once it was set up, Shawnie pumped the air into the bottle. This is the video of our first launch and thankfully our bottle didn’t get lost in the trees or on top of a building..and thankfully it didn’t hit the car. For our next launch, we plan to add our modifiers to get our rocket to stay in the air for at least 3 seconds. Hopefully all goes well!

The Plan

For our physic’s blog post this week, we will share with you what we plan to do for our water bottle rocket project. After looking through websites and finding different ideas for this project, we thought that the most helpful resource site was http://tclauset.org/21_BtlRockets/BTL.html. We liked this website a lot because on top of giving us a summary of how to make our bottle, there was a video to coincide with the instructions given. These videos went step-by-step and didn’t skip any part or make us confused. After watching these videos, we plan to use two soda bottles, create a parabolic nose cone for our rocket, add 3-4 fins (depending, we still have to research what number would be best) and a parachute. We know how to put on a nose cone and attach the correct sized fins according to the video, but we haven’t decided how we’re going to create our parachute just yet. We also decided to create a parabolic shaped nose cone instead of a pointed nose cone because a pointed nose is generally used for objects traveling at the speed of sound. Hopefully what we have planned so far will turn out to be a good start, so we shall see when we begin to put our rocket together :)