5th Grade Rocket Launch

Yesterday was the day we launched the rockets for the “first time”. It was really the second time but the first time nobodies rocket actually launched. We are so happy with our groups rocket! It went the highest out of the who class by far!! It was a huge success. Our group thought it was all because of the 3D printed nose cone and the amount of wings. We also got a wonderful day to be out for our launch! That was also very exciting. Well, we are just very happy because of the huge success yesterday and very proud!

 Although, our second launch didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. Our group decided to add 6 wings to our bottle the 2nd launch. Unfortunately, it turned out to heavy so it created drag. It didn’t go really high like the first launch. According to the data, our 1st launch went 10.5m more than the 2nd launch in meters. According to the data the 1st launch, we had a great launch. The wings were a big part of the success. I think we shouldn’t have changed any of the wings. Maybe it would’ve turned out better. We decided to add 2 of the little wings at the top in between the big gaps to balance it out. The material we used was cardboard. For the bottom wings we decided to add 4 of the big wings in between the big wings that were already there. But in styrofoam. We decided to make it in styrofoam because styrofoam is much lighter than cardboard. But it turned out altogether it was just too heavy. It created drag.

Another reason I believe our rocket didn’t launch as high as we wanted was because of the psi. The first launch we pressurized to 95 psi because that is how much the rocket could hold. But the 2nd launch we only pressurized up to 90 psi even though the rocket could hold more. If we would’ve pressurized up to the amount the rocket could hold it would of went higher. Maybe not as high as the 1st launch but a little bit higher than what we actually launched.

Good Things About 2nd Launch 

This 2nd launch was a great learning experience and an excellent experiment. This was a great learning experience because it will be great for all of the kids who are going to be fifth graders in this class. It is excellent because they will know not to do what we did. That way they will have very successful launches. They will hopefully try something new and have a success, and also a fail just to learn, like I did.

In conclusion the 2nd launch was a great learning experience for Mission Impossible and great for next year’s rocket engineers.

Questions

• If we had more time and more launches would we launch higher and come up with better ideas?
• If we changed the shape of wings would it launch higher or lower?
• If we used a paper nose cone instead of a 3D nose cone would it launch higher or lower?
• What would happen if we used a different type of bottle?
• How would it launch if we used just styrofoam material?