The picture above shows our final water bottle rocket that Lydia and I created. Throughout our water bottle project, Lydia and I learned A LOT of information we did not know previously. From the very first day of this project, we were equipped with lot of information about how these water bottle rockets work and how they should be created (from the various listing of websites that people listed in the blog entries). The two websites Lydia and I found helpful were:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/Water_Rocket_Launcher_Directions.html &
http://www.pack236.org/Water%20Bottle%20Rockets%20Guide%20for%20Expo.pdf. The first day of launching was kind of scary but really impressing. For our first launch, we basically were just familiarizing ourselves with how the bottle works and how the amount of water and pressure affects the height in which the bottle travels through the air. On our first launch, we used just the bottle itself and the standard 500 mL of water with 40 psi. The bottle lasted in the air for approximately 6 seconds. We were stoked about this result because we assumed after making modifications it would definitely hit the marked time of 10 seconds. For the second launching, Mr. Blake required that we make some type of modification to our bottle. Both the websites that we found gave us the idea that we should add a nose cone to the top of the bottle. The nose cone would help center the bottle and make a smoother flight. Mr. Blake hinted at us that we should use a sturdy nose cone because a flimsy piece of paper just would not do and wouldn't help the rocket. We decided that we should buy those orange cones that little kids use in soccer games and use that as our nose cone. It is very sturdy and we felt that it would help the bottle travel through the air very smoothly. The second day of launching we launched the bottle with and without the cone on top of our rocket. Both times were 6 seconds each. After these results, we were kind of stumped. We thought that maybe with the nose cone, our time would have increased, but it didn't. By the next class, we needed to make more modifications to our rocket so Lydia and I decided that maybe if we just attached wings to it, it would give us a couple more seconds in the air. We believed that the wings would help the bottle stay balanced, give a little weight, and stabilize the bottle during its flight. Before we got to class, I grabbed a cardboard box and cut 4 wings. I was oblivious to the fact that maybe I should have cut the wings in proportion to the size of the bottle. The requirements to this third launching also called for a parachute to be attached to the bottle, but it did not necessarily require it having to be deployed. When we went to go launch our rocket, the bottle did not go very high and the parachute did not deploy. On this launching we needed to reach a minimum of 3 seconds. After the launch, our bottle barely made the 3 second requirement. Lydia and I were kind of mad because after making more modifications to the bottle, the time shortened! Over the weekend, we thought and and felt that we needed to recreate our rocket. We got a new bottle and recut new wings, made a new parachute, elongated our bottle (with a second bottle), and added a weight in the middle. Adding the weight would help the center of pressure. We got this idea from:
http://home.comcast.net/~timhesterberg/HowToRockets/HowToRockets.html. In doing this, it really helped our fourth launch. We needed a minimum of 5 seconds for the fourth launch. After launching, the bottle lasted 8.5 seconds! We processed this result and realized that maybe we need to add more pressure and water to our bottle. On the final launch day, we added about 800 mL of water and 80 psi. We launched three times on our last day. The first two launches were 6 and 5 seconds. This was because the cone would not come off during flight so the parachute could not deploy. We decided to make the cone super loose on the rocket. On our third launch, the cone finally came off and the parachute deployed! This left us with a 10.4 second flight!! We were soooo happy! After our third launch we tired a last launch to try and get a better time, but that was a fail. Our fourth launch was a total of 6.625 seconds. On this last launch, our cone did not come off yet again and it broke during its fall. Thank God we met the 10 second requirement! In conclusion, we learned that the more water and pressure you place in the bottle, the more pressure will be created to push the bottle farther up. Wings help to stabilize the rocket and the cone helps the rocket fly straight. The weight in the middle would help the center of pressure so that it can come down due to gravity. And, the parachute catches the air to help keep the rocket in the air for a longer period of time. Overall, this was a very fun, exciting, and muddy project. I'm so happy our rocket last 10 seconds. :)
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