Thursday, March 1, 2012

Today our task was to launch the bottle rocket again with modifications. What we decided to do was to try different amount of air pressure and the different amount of water to use. We tried launching it a few times and what we noticed in the end is that it launched high with 700 psi. The pump we used did not have any gauge on it so we pumped it around twenty times. We plan on using pretty large fins toward the bottom of the bottle to place the center of pressure toward the bottom. We also want to put the fins slightly at an angle so it gives the rocket a little bit of spin so it goes directly upward. But we do not want to use to much spin because by spinning the bottle, it also loses some energy. we also plan on using a weighted nose cone to have better aerodynamics and to make the center of mass toward the top. For the parachute we plan using a small trash bag at putting either in the nose cone or second bottle  In this last class our first launch was about 3.5 seconds and our second launch was around 4.5 seconds with a little bit more pressure.

1 comment:

  1. for our first modifications we placed the cone on our bottle, but it didn't quite help us that much. our time was the same. after adding our wings, it actually decreased the time. it was kind of weird. but good definitions and explaining how the rocket works :)

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