FINAL BLOGPOST

Our sad faces after our last launch :(

Our overall assessment of this water bottle rocket project was that it was a good learning experience and a good way of looking at physics in real life scenarios. Our rocket was one of the best in terms of height and trajectory. What made our rocket the best? We think our extended body, thick cardboard fins, and heavy nose cone attributed to the success of our rocket. The one aspect of the rocket we did not possess was the parachute. Our first launch was with no attachments, just the bare bottle. That launch was approximately four seconds and had a lot of success compared to others in the class. The 750 ml and 60 psi put into the bottle was one of the reasons why it did better. Most of the others had only 500 ml and 40 psi. The added water and pressure created a more powerful lunch and is probably the reason we did so well with out a parachute. (http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/BottleRocket/about.htm-) (http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/BottleRocket/about.htm) These are the two links we found that helped us to make our rocket better. Our next launch we did was with a heavy nose cone (soccer cones), durable cardboard fins, and we added another bottle to our rocket to make it longer. The heavy nose cone and durable cardboard fins helped to keep the rocket more stable while in flight. The extended body of our rocket created a lower center of pressure which helped propel our rocket to a 10.4 second launch. Sadly, this was not on the "money" day. The next launch we tried to add a parachute which did not deploy and ended up getting our rocket stuck in a tree. Because our rocket was working well, we knew that we had to retrieve it. When we got our rocket we discovered that our nose cone and parachute were destroyed so we had to make a new one. For the final launch, we shot our rocket with a new nose cone and no parachute. This as we later figured out, was a very bad idea. The conditions on launch day were not good. There was very high gusts of wind and rain. We tried to launch our rocket between the gusts of wind, but as soon as we launched the wind picked up and caught our rocket. Our rocket went quite high. After all of our testing we came up with the perfect concoction of water and air pressure. (800 ml of water with around 80-85 psi) When we launched our rocket it went straight up in the air. On its decent down to earth, the wind carried our rocket off path and caused it to land on the roof of Akahi. The weather during our final launch days was our biggest challenge to overcome. The wind was very powerful and rain was heavy. The wind played a big factor toward the top of our rockets trajectory because it would come out of the enclosure of the buildings, this is why i think our rocket blew so far away.

Life Sucks.

Let me start this blog by saying that we probably shouldn't have launched our rocket during this epic storm. The winds are blowing at a high velocity and it is raining heavily. The launch was good and our rocket had a lot of potential. Sadly the wind took a hold of it at the top of its trajectory and sent it deep into the boonies. Our beloved rocket is lost and probably wont ever be found. She had the potential to do great things, but sadly we might never get to find out what those great things are. R.I.P. to the best rocket in the universe. To make matters worse we dont even have a last picture or video footage of our rocket. We were going to take a picture of our glorious victory after we accomplished it and we were in class. so yea...

EPIC FAIL!

Today our launch was a fail. Our rocket went strait up but once the wind caught it, it blew our rocket over the roof into a tree. The one thing we changed on our rocket was we added a new bigger parachute. I dont know if this parachute was bad luck and is what caused our rocket to go bad. Next launch we need to plan better. One thing we are going to change is we are going to try and launch our rocket at a better time. We will be patient and wait for the wind to die down before we launch. Next class we will need to add a new parachute and a new nose cone. Also we need to find a way to allow the nose cone to come off so that the parachute can deploy.

Third Launch

Today we launched our rocket with two new attachments. We added a nose cone to the top of our rocket and a parachute. Another modification we did was to the fins of our rocket. On our previous launch once the fin fell off, our rocket went crooked. So, to fix this we re-glued the fins on and also taped on the fins. This helped the rocket to fly much better as you can see in the video. We kept the water level at 750mL and pressure at around 60psi. I believe that the nose cone allowed the rocket less air resistance while it was launching and the fins helped it to go strait up. As you can see in the video, the rocket goes fairly strait. One thing that we need to fix is our parachute. We need to find a way to make the chute open so that our rocket will stay in the air longer.

Today we did two launches. On the first launch we timed our bottle rocket with no attachments. Sadly it flew into the tree which helped it stay above the ground for eight seconds. On the next attempt We added on four wings and made the rocket longer with a second bottle. The wings helped to create a little drag which stabilized the bottle while in the air. The extra bottle lowered the center of pressure which also helped to keep the bottle going straight up instead of at an angle which would decrease time in air. The modifications with the bottle rocket helped to keep it up right for most of the launch. We lost two of the wings during mid-flight. So hopefully if we glue them on better and add a nose cone with a parachute, it will help to keep the rocket in the air for ten seconds. Kory and I will have to figure out a way to keep the parachute in until the top of the launch, where hopefully the parachute will deploy.