In school we are doing our rocketry unit. We have finished our first rocket and launch. My team’s name is “The Rocketeers.” There was a lot of research in order to build and launch our rockets. Each group made inspiration boards which had things like quotes, images and research. At first, my group just wanted to go right ahead and start designing our rocket, but before we could do any of that there was a lot of research involved. I am glad that we did research because if we did not we probably would not have a good rocket that went really high.
Designing our rocket took time. We all had to decide on one design. We had a lot of disagreements, but a lot of agreements. We eventually took a vote to decide on the one we were going to make. We had to start experimenting with different wing sizes, nose cones and body shapes. We ended up with 3 by 3 inch wings and a small but pointy nose cone and for the body we had to choose a pvc pipe so we chose the skinnier tube to wrap the paper around. When we had everything planned we started building the rocket.
Building our first rocket took some time. When we first started building our rocket it seemed pretty easy, but when we tried rolling the paper over the tube it was actually harder than it looked, but when we did get it we had to tape it together which was pretty easy. Then we had to make a nose cone out of paper by folding it and cutting halfway and then rolling the paper to be a cone. Also, we made a fin template to trace on cardboard. Finally we cut them out and glued the fins on the body and taped on the nose cone and… we had a rocket!
I think that my group worked really well together. We had our ups and downs but we eventually came to an agreement. For example, on our first rocket two people wanted a green body but two people wanted a blue body, so we came to a compromise which was a blue nose cone and a green body. Overall I think my group worked really well and I am glad I am in this group.