Rocketry Experience
The rocketry unit in Mrs. Cooper’s classroom has been an exciting and a learning experience.
The five groups (the T.F.B, The Galaxy Squad, The Guardians of the Galaxy, The Space Grandmas, and The Superstars) had a lot of fun times while they researched, designed , built, and launched the rocket.
I learned a lot about science during the rocketry process. We had to think about drag force and Newton’s three laws of motion as each group designed and built each rocket. All the groups also learned how to work as a team and cooperate.
Personally my favorite part was launching the rocket. I was very surprised of how high my groups first rocket launched. Although I was happy with the first launch my second launch is not something that I am proud of. When my group pressed the button to launch our rocket barely went off the launch pad! So my teacher had us try it again, when we tried it again our rocket got at least higher than todays attempt #1 but did not go higher than launch #1. Although my groups second rocket did not go that high launching the rockets was still my favorite part of the whole experience.
Personally my least favorite part was compromising. My group had a lot of ideas and with a lot of ideas we had a lot of arguments. It was not fun arguing and disagreeing. But finally at the end of every argument my group had a compromise. I think that agreeing was my groups least favorite part of the experience.
Here is everything my class did in the rocketry unit. The first thing we did was research, each group watched videos, read articles, took notes, and even studied photos to help them later in the process. Next each group created an inspiration board. On the inspiration board they put quotes, images, and facts. Mostly things they researched. After that each group made a design for their first rocket. They either made it on paper or google drawing. Also they had to put why they choose anything on their design. For example one thing my group put on our design was why we decided to have a thick body. Than we built the rocket. My group decided to have a 12 inch. Body that was made of construction paper, with 3 foam paper fins that were in the shape of a triangle, lastly we had a paper nose cone that was pointy, and we brought everything together with tape and glue. Finally it came time to launch I was both excited and nervous. There were four readers that measure the angle, degrees of how high each rocket went. The last thing my group did for rocket number one was graph the rocket, figure out how high it went. We did this by taking the angle that the kilometers readers got and then turned it into meters using a special chart.
The first rocket process was the same as the last. Except my group new how high some other groups went and how low other did, and we new what things on their rockets made them go so high or so low.
When the rocketry unit was over my teacher had us do a slideshow about the process. In the slideshow my group included what we did in the process, why we did it, and how we did it. For example on one slide I said “We decided to use three foam paper fins so that our rocket would be lighter and consist of a perfect amount of drag.”
This is my Groups Slideshow:
My group all worked on memorizing our lines and when we finally did we had our parents come in and we did the slideshow for them.
This is my groups Performance:
Overall the rocketry unit in Mrs. Cooper’s class has been an exciting learning and a cooperating experience. And now that it is over I wish I could do it again.