Steps to making a water bottle rocket!!!
1- Take two 2 Liter bottles
-Bottle one- Use duct tape to tape the outsides of the bottle to make it sturdy.
-Bottle two- Cut the bottle into three pieces and duct tape the middle piece to bottle one to increase the length of the rocket to increase stability.
2- Cut a folder into three equal triangles and fold them at the middle to form two right triangles each. Tape them to the bottle to make the fins. Fins help to increase stability!
3- Use a handful of marbles, stick them in a Ziploc bag, and place it in the opening of bottle two. Use the top of bottle two and stick it on top of the opening of bottle two to make it look like a dome on top of the marbles. Tape it to the inside of the rocket! The marbles help to distribute the weight on both ends to increase stability and the dome like bottle part helps to keep the marbles attached to the rocket.
4- To make the parachute, take a small garbage bag and cut it into a square. Tape the corners of the square and the middle of the sides so you have 8 pieces of tape. Repeat so that the tape is on the other side of the bag as well. Use a hole puncher to hole punch the taped area and tie pieces of string to through the hole. The parachute slows down the rocket as it falls and increases the time. Use the ends of the string and tape it to the inside of the rocket.
5- Take a cone and stick model magic clay into the tip of the cone to make a nose cone. The nosecone helps with the stability when it flies!
6- Add water, pump it, and you're set!
(Our diagram!)
Our rocket didn't fly as well as I hoped it was. After we released it, the rocket released water and flew straight into the sky. We wanted the nosecone to fall off as the rocket began to slow down in the air, however the nosecone would usually come off as it was going up. Because it came off earlier, the parachute was released too early, decreasing the amount of time the rocket was in the air. After adjustments such as taking out some marbles, readjusting our parachutes, and adding a little tape to our cone, our longest launch lasted for about 7 seconds.
After so many trials, I felt disappointed in myself that our rocket wasn't staying up for 10 seconds. I felt that we could've done it and it irked me that it wasn't working. After stopping for a few minutes, we decided to try one last time. The last launch gave us 9 seconds!!!!! This lab not only taught me how to make a rocket bottle rocket and what makes it fly so well, but it also taught me to never give up and to just keep on trying. You never know if your next trial can bring you one step closer to your goal. Even though we didn't reach the 10 second mark, it was pretty fun and was a good experience!
Our final product! :)
Rocket Man Women!!
Aleina, my water bottle rocket lab partner, and I built the body of our water bottle rocket from two 2 Liter bottles. We used duct tape to take the outside of one of the bottles to keep the plastic sturdy and we cut up the other one before taping it to the first bottle. The second bottle is where we stored a roll of duct tape, a bag of Goldfish snacks, and a number of quarters to add mass and balance the amount of weight we towards the end of our bottle rocket. We attached a parachute (which was made of a plastic bag, duct tape and string) to the second rocket so when the rocket reaches its peak in height, air resistance will help to keep it in the air longer as it falls back down. The nose cone stores the parachute and was made of a sports drilling cone. The nose cone ensures that as the cone is in the air, the parachute won't come out until it starts to fall. There is play doh to help increase the amount of mass on the end of the bottle rocket to even out amount of mass on both sides. We also attached fins to our rocket to ensure the rocket will be steady.
Our attempt for day 2 wasn't too bad! After every launch, my partner and I tweaked it a bit. Surprisingly, our tweaking actually increased the amount of time every time! We reached our 5 second goal with 5.1 seconds, which might not be a long time for other groups, but gave us hope to continue modifying our project and to trust in Physics!
Unit 8!
Today's lesson was still on work and energy!
This is a picture of my little cousin playing with a stuffed animal. She was tossing it up in the air and catching it! This simple act of tossing the stuffed animal into the air is actually an example of how physics is in the world around me! When tossing the Piglet doll in the air, my little cousin is putting kinetic energy into the doll and the doll is gaining potential energy. Potential energy is the energy an object COULD have and it increases as the height increases. When Piglet reaches the top of its path, he loses kinetic energy and has the most potential energy. But because of gravity, what goes up must come down. As Piglet falls, he begins to gain kinetic energy and lose potential. During the whole toss, the amount of energy there is stays consistent. However, it is either in kinetic or potential energy.
Watts up? (Unit 8)
Unit 8 focuses on Work and Energy. The equation to solve for work is Work = Force x Change in Distance. So for example, if Jon had a mass of 60 kilograms and Aleina pushed him 5 meters at the acceleration of 0.5 meter/second/second in 20 seconds, we can calculate how much work is done. By using the F = ma equation, we can solve for the force first. (60 kg x 0.5 m/s/s = 30 N). After solving for the force, we can use it to solve for work! (30 N x 5 meters = 150 joules).
We can also solve for the amount of power by using the equation Power = Work/Time.
Since we know work = 150 joules and 20 seconds was our given amount of time, we can use that to solve for power. (150 joules/ 20 seconds = 7.5 watts).
Egg Drop Lab!
Today, everyone was really EGGcited to conduct our Egg Drop Lab! For my capsule, my partner and I had a small container (that we completely padded with bubble wrap and cotton balls to cushion it) placed inside a cardboard box. In the cardboard box, we had two foam like cushions, two toilet paper rolls, and one large paper roll on the bottom of the box. The paper rolls were used to take the impact because it crumples when it lands. We filled the rest of the box with crumpled newspaper, bubble wrap, yarn, and plastic bags and used them as a cushion to increase the time. In the equation Change in momentum = Force x Change in time, if you increase the time, it decreases the amount of force on the capsule.
The
forces that were exerted on the capsule are weight force from the
gravity. However, when it hits the ground, there is normal force as
well.
Something that went wrong with our project was that it bounced after hitting the ground and landed on the top (bottom picture) instead of how it was supposed to (top picture). Bouncing increases the amount of force on the capsule. However, we were lucky and the bouncing didn't cause too much damage. Something that I would've done was add something that would crumple to take the impact and weights so the capsule would fall straight and hopefully not bounce.
Baby you're a FIREWORK! (Unit 7)
Law of conservation of momentum states that in a controlled situation, momentum will be conserved, which means that momentum cannot be created nor destroyed. Fireworks are a good example of this law! In a "perfect physics world", fireworks follow a parabola shaped route. And when reaching the top of their route, they explode into a million pieces!! According to the law, if you take the initial momentum of the firework and the total momentum of each piece of the explosion, their momenta will equal each other!
I took this picture while watching the fireworks from last year's Fourth of July event.
Unit 7!
Unit 7 focuses on momentum. Momentum is the force or speed of movement and is the product of an object's mass and velocity. Something important about momentum is that it must be conserved. Important equations we learned are...
Momentum = mass x velocity
Change in momentum (Impulse) = average force x change in time
Momentum (in) = Momentum (out)
(Mass1 x initial velocity1) + (Mass2 x initial velocity2) = (Mass1 x final velocity1) + (Mass2 x final velocity2 )
Some of these equations are helpful in explaining how to successfully toss water balloons without popping them. The picture above is a picture of me and my friend about to conduct a water balloon toss at her birthday party! When tossing a balloon, the balloon can only take a certain amount of force before popping. So in order to decrease the force, we can increase the time. I noticed that the people who stayed in for a while move their hands with the balloon as it fell into their hands. By doing that, they increase the contact time, decreasing the amount of force being exerted onto the water balloon!
