Bottle Rocket Design
Introduction
During this project, we were tasked with designing and building a bottle rocket. We then competed against our peers to see whose rocket would go the highest. The goal of this was to investigate projectile motion. Projectile motion is the motion of an object thrown or projected into the air, subject to only the acceleration of gravity. The object is called a projectile, and its path is called its trajectory.
Design
Fins: For fins, we decided to use elliptical fins with the goal of stabilizing the rocket during its flight and reducing drag.
Nose Cone: For the top of our rocket, we glued the top of another bottle on top of it, along with a paper cone. We did this to reduce the air resistance the rocket would encounter when we launched it.
Weight: We did everything we could to make the rocket as light as possible, so that it could travel the furthest possible distance.
The Launch
After everyone in the class was finished constructing their rockets, we launched them using pressurized air on the school field.
IMG_0854.movCalculations
With an understanding of trigonometry from my pre-calculus course, we calculated the height of the bottle rocket from the perspective of a primary viewer, hm, therefore the vertical height achieved by the rocket. After these values were calculated, we shifted over to an understanding of physics to calculate initial velocity, yy, from the final position equation, Final Position = (initial velocity) x (time) – (0.5)(32)(time)^(2). Based on this formula, we were able to calculate the initial velocity to be 48 meters per second.
After we obtained all measured and calculated values, we were able to successfully graph our bottle rocket's motion on a velocity x time graph.
