Rocket Lab *Launch*
- Analysis questions
- What design features were included in your rocket design?
- A nose cone, 4 triangular fins, an extension to the bottle, a parachute, weights in the nose cone.
- What worked as planned?
- Our rocket fired correctly and flew fairly high.
- What did not work as planned?
- Our parachute didn't deploy due to the nose cone staying on the tip of the rocket.
- Your launch conditions:
- psi at launch -
- around 60psi
- Amount of water in bottle
- about half way filled - 1000 ml
- What this project taught you:
- The physics learned
- Things such as air resistance, kinetic and potential energy, center of gravity, aerodynamics, etc.
- the "other" things learned
- I now know hate bottle rockets with a passion.
- Final thoughts
- Our rocket launch was extremely disappointing due to more than half of the features of our rocket not working. Our parachute only worked once only after our rocket launch failed and it only flew about 6 feet into the air. Also during one of our launches, the rubber plug flew off of the bottle and gave us an amazing launch time of 0.3 seconds. After the first day of launching where we only had the cardboard fins, the fins had broken off many times which compelled us to put more glue on the next day. The second day of launching (today) our nose cone got destroyed by the water and impact from hitting the ground so we had to make a new one which didn't really work as well. Overall, this lab was tiring, depressing, and got me covered in mud and water at the end of it.
Sorry to hear that you feel that your rocket launching challenges overshadowed your progress and learning that went on. Although you may have not reached your goal of 10 seconds, you and Caitlin had made tremendous gains over the course of your launch window, including a 7.1 second launch that went to the street area.
ReplyDeleteAs you move through your life as a student and beyond, how we handle adversity and challenges is an important piece of future success. I hope that you can find the positives of this learning opportunity and see how it has helped you grow as a physics student and as a person. Best of luck in the 4th quarter.
Sorry that your launches didn't go as expected but nice post!
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