Straw and Stomp Rockets

Here is an image of each of the rockets made by our group members. We tried using different shapes, sizes, and numbers of fins in our design to determine which would yield the best results.

Straw Rockets

The assignment for this activity was for each team member to build a straw rocket that would fly after blowing through a straw that was in the rocket. The challenge was to build different designs for each rocket so that the results would show which aspects of each rocket worked and which parts did not work. For example, we figured out that a few of the rockets were too heavy overall, some were too heavy at the tip, some of the nosecones were too big, etc... This activity was helpful to learn how each aspect of a rocket affected its overall success in flight. Using what we learned from this activity is helpful in deciding how we will design our final rocket for the week.

Stomp Rocket

The assignment for this activity was to build a rocket using a PVC pipe and paper that would fly into the air after being launched using a stomp launcher. Our rocket flew three times before getting stuck in a tree and flew the highest into the air out of all the groups. We designed the rocket with three fins and will use the results of this test rocket to bring into consideration when contemplating designs for the final rocket of the week.

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Launch video of our stomp rocket which flew the highest out of the groups but unfortunately was lost in the trees in a test after this video.

Here is a picture of the completed stomp rocket with some final layers of masking tape applied to the fins for addtional stability

Picture of the stomp rocket after numerous flights. It was extermely durable and the added tissue paper in the tip allowed it to survive multiple crashes in the ground without completely ruining the tip.

What We Learned

The straw rocket activity allowed us to experiment with different fin designs, the number of fins used in the rocket, and the body length of the rocket. The flight differences between using 3 versus 4 fins and triangle shaped fins versus parallelogram fins was also analyzed. This information was implemented during the stomp rocket activity when we made a rocket using 3 fins in the shape of a parallelogram. Additionally, we stuffed tissue paper in the nose cone of the rocket to add weight towards the top, thus balancing out the weight from the bottom fins and shifting the center of mass towards the middle. Our success with the stomp rocket activity provided us with important information when designing our actual rocket with the data Bot.

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