Jennifer

HYDRO ROCKET

Over the next three weeks, our class, with the help of our teacher Mrs. Nelson, will construct a rocket. Not just any rocket though, ours will be powered by WATER, instead of fuel. We will blast off the hydro rocket on the Thursday of the last week.




DAY ONE: We didn't really work on any part of the rocket today. Mrs. Nelson gave us a packet telling us how to build a rocket and a parachute. I spent a lot of the class trying to untangle a huge knot. :P



DAY TWO: Today we started the construction of our parachute. The parachute would be made out of a huge garbage bag. I chose to do the method of cutting the garbage bag into 20 strips, then gluing them back together as a circle. We didn't have enough time to finish making the parachute, but we got a good start.




DAY THREE: We went swimming for half an hour today and didn't work on our rocket. We also did an experiment where Mrs. Nelson put some alcohol in a corked bottle then pressurized it. After she uncorked the bottle, the alcohol inside exploded into white gas. We did the experiment again adding some blue food coloring with the alcohol. However, the alcohol still exploded into white gas. I still have no idea why that happened. =.= Here's a cool link about the first ever manned water rocket launch that my class is obsessed about. XD


DAY FOUR: I finally finished gluing together my parachute strips today. :D I still have to repair all the gaps and tears everywhere, but I'm doing that tomorrow. I also got a good start at the body of the water rocket. We're using these big knife things to cut our rockets. It is SOOOOOO HARD to cut up the plastic bottles!!!!!! >:(


DAY FIVE: We went swimming again. When we got back we got to watch a movie about how the Wright brothers and their quest of flight. I thought i learned a lot from that movie, like wing warping and stuff. I started and finished tying on the strings to the parachute. The parachute STILL rips and tears in places and I'm almost positive its not going to get off the ground. WAAAHHHH T.T Heres a really random movie about diet coke and mentos which has nothing to do with rockets, but its really awesome. :D
DAY SIX: I spent around half an hour today repairing and regluing my parachute. I also made a nose cone for my rocket. It's 5 pieces of cardboard taped together. It's kinda bendy and it's probably going to get knocked off by the force of the air hitting it. I've decided to reinforce it with adding more duct tape. :D Something i really really really REALLYY like... is WOLVES THEY SO CUTE AND FLUFFY AND COOL:P I found this cool looking wolf while i was looking for nose cone pictures.



DAY SEVEN: We watched another movie today called A Century of Flight. It told us all about the history of airplanes. From the Wright brothers plane to the modern Boeing 747 commercial plane. There was also this part in the movie where a plane dropped an atomic bomb in Japan. I found a movie of an atomic bomb exploding, its really cool. It looks kinda like a huge mushroom=]


DAY EIGHT: We're halfway through summer school!!!!! I spent all my time today making a pouch for my egg. I took the leftover pieces of garbage bag and used it for padding.



DAY NINE: We learned how to find an objects height using the altimeter. 90 degrees subtracted by the angle then multiplied by the baseline. I also worked more on my parachute. The lines keep getting tangled. :( I hate my parachute. I also made some ninja stars out of paper. :D



DAY TEN: We watched another movie today. It was about how airplanes could stay up in the air. Apparently an airplane needs; gravity, lift, drag, and thrust to fly. Gravity is created by the Earth. Lift happens because of the airplanes wings. An airplanes wings are designed so that the air on top is faster than the air underneath, causing the airplane to rise. Gravity and lift are fighting against each other. The planes lift has to be stronger than the Earth's gravity for the airplane to fly. Thrust is caused by the airplanes engines, an drag is caused by air. Thrust and drag also fight against each other. I worked more more on my egg holder thing and my parachute. I tested my parachute many times today and it always goes straight down :D I still haven't figured out a way to put it in the rocket with it getting tangled. :(

DAY ELEVEN:I didn't really do much today because I've finished most of my rocket. We watched a movie today about pressure. In the movie it showed us how pressure can be used to lift heavy objects such as mammoths and power big machines, Such as a pnematic drill.We were also asked to think about how much pressure we wanted in our hydro rocket. I think I'm going to ask for as much as possible, because then the rocket will go up in the air higher.

DAY TWELVE: Today we made these mini rockets out of film canisters and Alka-Seltzer. They're so small and cute compared to the ones we've been making for the past 2 weeks. :D WE used index cards to make the nose cone and the fins. Then we went outside on the playground to test them out. Some people's rockets, like Katerina's just lay there and fizzed when we added the Alka-Seltzer. :( Mine worked three out of the four times i tried it. Evelyn's rocket blew up in her face and got her splattered with water and Alka-Seltzer. :P Here's a link to some Alka-Seltzer rocket experiments.

DAY THIRTEEN: Andre, Charlie, and Brian are blasting off their rockets today because they're not going to be here tomorrow. I spent around 10 minutes improving my egg's padding. I also tried many different ways to put my parachute into my rocket. I found out that putting the parachute in the nose cone works the best. That's about all I did today...

DAY FOURTEEN: BLAST OFF DAY!!!!!! and second last day of summer school. Everybody blasted off their rocket at least 2 times. I spent over a week making my parachute and it didn't even come out when my rocket hit apogee. =.= sigh. But my rocket went pretty high both times. :D Sadly no one took my altimeter thingy for my first launch.

Heres the results of me and Emily's launches:

MINE
Distance from Rocket: 100ft
Angle of Altimeter: 46 degrees
Rocket at apogee: 97ft
Time to apogee: 3:24
EMILY
Distance from Rocket: 100ft
Angle of Altimeter: 58 degrees
Rocket at apogee: 62ft
Time to apogee: 1:83