Tuesday, February 28, 2012
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
Sunday, February 26, 2012
(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 :)
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 :)
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