Final Blogpost: Glad It's All Over

Amber and I were partners for this project. We tried our best to split the work equally and to collaborate our ideas in order to make the best rocket and most effective rocket possible. As such, we both did an equal amount of research and took turns writing the blog posts each night. That being said, the past few weeks have certainly been interesting.

Our rocket had fins, a nose cone, and a parachute. Amber provided the materials to create the parachute and she also bought the cone. We did multiple launches each day in order to test the effectiveness of each addition that we made to our cone (For example, the second launch day was to test our fins, third day to test parachute, etc.)
For the first 3 launch days, we used 500mL of water and 40 psi. The last two days, however, we decided to use 600mL and keep the psi at 40psi. This resulted in our rocket going higher than on the days before.

This was the best and longest launch that we had, which was from the final launch day.

As stated in the previous blog post, conditions certainly weren't optimal for launching a rocket, but we did the best that we could and our data, for the most part, was quite consistent. In order, these were the flight times for our last seven launches: 5.25 s, 3.4s, 4.1s, 5.1s, 7.3s, 3.4s, 7s. The seven-second times were our best times.

Looking back, our rocket would have faired a bit better if we had been able to find a more effective way to allow the parachute to deploy. We experienced a few problems with it deploying too soon, too late, or not at all. We also probably should have used a more circular parachute, rather than a deep trash bag, which may have been too much chute. Our fins were made of cardboard and ultimately got soaked and bent in the rain, which I'm sure, defeated their purpose. If we had the chance to change our design to function better in the rain, we probably would have covered our fins in duct tape and had a more circular parachute.

Other than that, We honestly believe that for the most part, everything concerning our rocket design worked as planned (enough to have reached the 10 second requirement) and that the weather conditions of the final launch day was the deal-breaker.

Final Launch! Small Kine Successful, But Not Really.

Today was our final launch. I can only begin to describe todays' harsh weather conditions before getting chills in my feet. I'm sure we had a hurricane today, I don't think anyone realized it though. That being said, today's weather certainly wasn't not optimal for launching a rocket successfully.

That being said, we launched our rocket, in the POURING RAIN, a total of seven times. The first five times, we filled our rocket up with 600mL of water and pumped 40 psi. The fifth launch was the most successful one of the whole day, with a flight time being a whomping (insert sarcastic voice here) 7.2 seconds. Our goal, of course was 10 seconds.

I believe that it would have had more flight time if the parachute had deployed sooner. I'd like to imagine that it had a harder time deploying because the plastic parachute was stuck inside the plastic cone due to the fact that they were both wet with rain. After the fifth launch, we decided to ditch the cone and just just wrap the parachute around the bottle. That was pointless because the parachute caught the wind as it was launching, prevent the rocket from going beyond ten feet high and reducing flight time to a little over three seconds.

The last launch was okay. It flew about 7 seconds.

The Fifth Launch: A Day of Adversity and Triumph

Today was the fourth day of launches and the rocket needed to be in the air for at least five seconds. Mahea was absent so I had to change the rocket myself. I taped the parachute to the bottle, placed the cone on top of the bottle, stuffed the parachute inside of it, and went outside to launch. I would like to express my gratitude towards Megan and Allie, who assisted me greatly while I struggled to set up the rocket. I used 600 milliliters of water and 40 psi. When launched, the rocket managed to achieve five seconds of air time. The rain damaged the fins, so those will need to be fixed for the next launch. I am also planning to improve how the cone rests on the bottle since the parachute did not deploy, which would have slowed down the rocket and increased the time. 

Fourth Launch

The requirement for today, the third day of launches, was to have a rocket with a parachute and a flight time of at least three seconds. We changed the design of the rocket by taping the top half of a Coke bottle to it. For the parachute, we attached a plastic bag to the Coke bottle half.  For the first launch, only 400 milliliters of water and 40 psi were added. When the rocket was launched for the first time, its flight time was only two seconds. We realized that the rocket probably needed more force to go upwards, so we used 500 milliliters for the next launch. This video depicts our second launch, which lasted for the minimum time. For our next launch, we are going to change how the parachute is deployed. The following link explains how a parachute is supposed to work for a water rocket.

http://www.rocklin.k12.ca.us/staff/pmorrison/ConPhys/Rockets/ParachutePreDesign.htm

Launches 2 & 3, WITH fin modifications

Today we had to do two launches, at least one having had modifications to the bottle rocket. We decided to hot glue fins to the bottle, and do two launches with the fins. This way, we can see how durable they are and if they are properly placed, sized, et cetera. Our first launch went quite well, in the sense that it went straight up into the air and lasted approximately 5 seconds. However, I'm not quite sure whether or not it was the wind or if the fins were too big, but one of the fins came off, and the bottle floated with the wind for a bit.

For the second launch, we did the same thing. We used the same amount of water and pressure (500mL, and 40psi) , but the launch seemed to be delayed after i pulled the rope. The bottle only lasted 3 seconds in the air. This could be due to the face that it only had two fins on it, or perhaps a problem with the pressure and the pump. 

Our next launch, we will cut the fins shorter, duct-tape them to the bottle (in addition to the glue that's already on it) and then we will add the parachute. I'm excited to see how that goes. 

First Launch

Today marked the beginning of our bottle rocket experiment. After a demonstration of the process by Mr. Blake, we prepared to set up our own rocket. We placed a stand in the field and filled the bottle with 500 milliliters of water, which is its sole fuel. After it received eight pumps from the bike pump, Mahea pulled the rope to release it. At first, the bottle slightly fell over and did not go into the sky. However, much to my audible surprise, it suddenly launched upwards and stayed in the air for about four seconds. Our next launch has to incorporate modifications, so we will find out by the next launch day how certain additions to the overall mass of the rocket will affect its acceleration. Since we are going to add fins to our rocket, the following link reflects the dynamics involved with using them.

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2140

(Tentative) Plans For Our Rocket!

Amber and I are partners for this project. I've volunteered to do the first post. I've looked through quite a bit of links online for how to build the most efficient bottle rocket. Our main goal is that it stay in the air for at least ten seconds. That being said, ten seconds is a REALLY-REALLY long time.
Therefore, we must calculate and design our rocket to be JUST RIGHT. The weight of each part of the rocket must be within certain restrictions in order to ensure that the rocket not be too heavy or too light. One website, http://www.ohio4h.org/sciencealive/rocketsaway.html says that the nose-cone section of the rocket should weight between 0.3 and 15 oz. The body weight should be between 0.8 and 15 oz, tail weight should also be between .8 and 15 oz (although lighter is recommended), and use up to 64 oz of water. It's common sense that the more mass of water you push in one direction, the more push is on your rocket. However, because we're limited to 2 liters of water, we must still leave room for pressure to build. The ideal amount of pressure is 1-140 psi.

The only difficulty is finding the correct combination of weight/water/ and air pressure in order to allow us to WIN the challenge :)