So far this year in 5th grade I have really been enjoying science. My absolute favorite part of science was rocketry where we have been brain storming, designing, and building rockets. We had our first launch on Wednesday, Nov. 4th. The first launch wasn’t that successful. In 2 out of the 6 groups the rockets ended up having an air leak, they didn’t launch since the air just kept leaking out. One of the rockets broke into two pieces when the group members tried to pump air into the rocket. 3 of the groups had lift off of the launch pad, but didn’t go very high. Oh, and I forgot to tell you what the rockets were made of. Every group had to use a plastic bottle (soda, seltzer, water, etc.) for the body. But you could use as many bottles as you wanted, and any kind of bottle you wanted. The wings could be made of cardboard, styrofoam, or wood, what ever you wanted and you could put as many wings as you wanted, Ms. Boyer suggested that we use more than 2, you could even have a second row of wings. And the nosecone, you could be so adventurous with the nosecone, you could 3D print it, make it out of any type of paper, or you could even use a party hat. My group made our first rocket out of: for the body we used a Vintage Seltzer bottle, for the wings we had 3 of them and we used cardboard and then reinforced it with balsa wood, and for the nosecone we cut a circle out of a manilla folder and then made it it into the shape that we wanted it in, and last but not least we used a lot maybe even too much duct tape, we used sparkly, tie dye, rainbow, and much much more. Our rocket didn’t have lift off of the launch pad because, we cut the end off of the first bottle that the air was going into and stuck another bottle of the same type right into it. We did this because we thought that the air pressure that came out would be stronger. But instead, the air leaked out. This is what it actually looked like:
On Nov. 9, we had our second launch. Everyone’s rocket was successful, but one group’s rocket didn’t have lift off of the launch pad. Their rocket had a leak at the top where they put their nosecone. They sealed it very firmly with hot glue, but somehow it managed to leak. I forgot to mention that this time we didn’t just use air, but we also used water and then pumped air into the rocket for extra force, we put 200 ml of water and 90 P.S.I. of air. It helped a lot! I will post a video of the rocket launching later. I don’t know why I can’t put it on this post. Anyway, here are the changes my group made: we figured out the flaws, and got straight to work. This time we didn’t cut the first bottle. We used a Smart Water bottle, and then on top of it we put the top of a Sprite bottle that was cut but it didn’t matter that it was cut because no air was going into it, we just used it to make the rocket bigger and, also because the nosecone fit perfectly onto the top of it, but the main reason we used the Sprite bottle was because, we were going to use another Smart Water bottle but we couldn’t get it immediately and we were running out of time. We also added another wing so we had 4 of them. But we kept the nosecone. Our rocket was very successful, it went 24 meters into the sky, we figured that out by converted the degree that we found out by using clinometer, with a special kind of graph. That is about it for what I know as of now… I am really enjoying rocketry!!
Design Challenges – towards the beginning of the school year we started doing different design challenges. The first one we did was to use index cards and build a stable structure/tower, after it was completed we then measured to see which groups was the tallest, and then we laid something on top of it to see who’s was the most stable. A strategy that our class found was to fold the index card in half so it is like a triangle and then lay it on it’s side. Design challenges are really fun! After we are finished with our rocketry unit we are looking forward to doing more of them!
