2-L Rocket Eggmission

1. Q-Focus Rockets:

1. How do the fins influence the flight of the rocket?

2. Is the water a factor in the inertia of motion of the rocket?

3. When the rocket hits the ground, what happens to the inertia?

The project answered the first question about the fins influencing the flight of the rocket. We tried two different materials for the fins of the rocket. First we tried cardboard, but we ended up using CDs for the final launch. The CDs worked better and made the rocket fly farther because they pushed the air with the same amount of force, while the cardboard did not.

2. Making of Your Rocket:

Materials:                                             

-2 liter bottles                                                      

-duct tape                                              

-2 CDs                                         

-nutella                                                       

-bubble wrap               

-plastic bags

-nickels                                                                                     

-egg

 

Procedure:

1. Cut one liter bottle in half, and attach the top part of the bottle to the bottom of the other bottle.

2. Cut the CDs in half.

3. Attach the 4 parts of the CDs with duct tape to the outside of the bottle to make fins.

4. Put the nutella in a plastic bag and put it in the front of the rocket.

5. Place the bubble wrap around the nutella to make a cushion.

6. Put the egg in a plastic bag and cushion it with more bubble wrap before placing it at the front of the rocket with nutella.

7. Tape nickels on the inside of the body of the rocket.

8. Attach the front of the rocket to the body and secure it with duct tape.

 

 

3. Physics of Rocket

 

The launching of the rocket starts with a law of physics.  For a rocket to lift off, force must be exerted on it.  Newton's first law states that objects at rest will stay at rest, or objects in motion will stay in motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.  The rate of speed will be determined by the mass of the rocket and the force created by the fuel because of Newton's second law: The acceleration of an object is directly related to the force exerted on that object and oppositely related to the mass of that object.  Newton's third law is that for every action there is always an opposite and equal reaction.  Therefore, the reaction, or motion, of the rocket away from the launch pad is equal to and opposite from the thrust of the engine or nozzle. 

(from gtastic.com)

 

 

 

4. How Does Your Rocket Protect the Egg from Breaking?

 

When the rocket falls back to earth, it is very easy for the egg to crack when it hits against the sides of the rocket from the impact of the rocket crashing down.  To prevent the egg from breaking, you can wrap it in foam and pad the sides of the rocket so that the egg will have a cushion to land on and does not get crushed by the force of landing on the ground.  Unfortunately, our egg cracked because we only used bubble wrap and nutella on the inside of our rocket.  This was not enough to keep our egg from breaking at the moment of impact when the egg hit the wall of the rocket.

 

                          

 5. Results

 

Our rocket went 57 meters.  Unfortunately, the egg cracked when it landed.  It was launched at an angle of 35 degrees, and we used 750 mL of water.  We launched it at angle of 35 degrees because the first launch proved that 40 degrees wasn't enough to make our rocket go further than 30 meters.  The only problem we encountered was our egg breaking because we did not have enough support to cushion the egg when it landed. 

 

           

 

 

6. What Did You Learn?

 

In this project, I learned how to apply physics to everyday life.  Newton's three laws were used in all of the aspects of the rocket and it taught me about how forces react off of each other.  I also learned that nutella, although it is delicious, can't protect an egg from the imapact of a crashing rocket.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Falling

1. I picked this video because the skydiver sets a record hight for skydiving and it shows the relationship between speed, distance, and time.
2. It's better than other videos because it tells the hight and speed throughout the video, and shows an illustration of the jump at the end.
3. If I made a video, I would drop various objects from different heights and record the times and what affected the different drops. 

Spaghetti Tower Attempt #2

< Our new plans
Base

Supports: 26cm

Legs: 22.5cm

Base: 13cm

Triangle legs: 13cm

Diagonals on bottom: 18cm

Rectangular Prism

Sides: 22.5 cm

Diagonals: 26cm

Base: 13cm

Diagonals on bottom: 18cm

Pyramid

Base: 13cm

Legs: 26cm

Height: 22.5 (not represented on tower)

Top Stick

Stick: 26cm

Total Theoretical Height: 97cm

Taking the "leaning" factor into account (the tower is leaning somewhat in the picture), the tower was about 87cm. 

 

The Process...

 < Measuring

  < Base

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

< Base + Supports

 

 

 < Building the tower

 < Finally, 80cm!

Self Evaluation

1. In the beginning, building a tower out of spaghetti seemed simple and easy, but as time progressed I realized how difficult it was.  After the tower crumbled multiple times, I felt frustrated and wanted to give up.  In the end, I found out the challenges of building a tall structure with such a fragile, thin, material.

2. Our design seemed to stand out because the base was the largest in the room at 75 x 75.  Also, others seemed to have no problems with their design unlike us. 

3. If I could add another material, it would be super glue.  With super glue there would be no problem with structures falling apart because of the marshmallows melting. 

4. My contributions to the group included buying and trading supplies as well as the construction of the tower.  Since I was in a two person group, we basically split up all of the jobs and helped each other out.

Group Evaluation and Anallysis #6

If I had an opportunity to redesign the tower, I would make a stronger foundation  by having crosses to supprt each layer.  Also i would make each layer shorter so that the spaghetti sticks would not bend under the weight and so that i could double the sticks. 

Group Evaluation and Analysis #5

The biggest challenge we faced was building a base that would be sturdy enough to support the tower.  Our first model was too large to fit on the desk, so we had to build a smaller foundation.  Since the spaghetti was weak, we had to double it to make it support the weight of the structure.

Group Evaluation and Analysis #4

The current design was good because it was smaller, but it was not stable enough to build into a tall structure.