Hey everyone! In this section, we are able to extend the Rocket Project. Since we have experience making rocket motors, we are now able to create our own! We spent long and hard researching the difference between sugar fuel and black powder fuel with our partner. My partner is Monique (obviously). We created a document that holds all of our information and research. We are using it to compile everything we are doing and learning, so we can create a final product at the end of this section. We're making a poster! I will probably put it down below when it is made, but wish us luck in the meantime. Monique and I's Photoshop skills are lacking. A lot. But without further ado, here is what we have done so far:
February 24th - 26th
Monique and I researched the difference between sugar fuel and black powder. So far, we can't decide which is better. They both seem cool in their own ways. Black powder makes the rocket get off the ground a lot faster than the sugar fuel, but the sugar fuel allows us to have a higher and steadier flight. At this point, we are thinking of just doing both. More to come.
February 29th - March 3rd
For the past couple of days, Monique and I have been checking in with Andrew to make sure that we can move ahead in this project. Fortunately, we got approved with our proposal. We wanted to do half black powder, half sugar fuel. We would layer it. We want to put the black powder on the bottom of the motor, so the rocket would be able to get off the ground pretty quickly. We would then put the sugar fuel mixed with iron oxide, so the duration of the flight is nice and steady. That't the logic of the plan, explained by our teacher. He said that no one in his previous classes has thought of that or tried it. Little does he know, we just couldn't decide on which one to use, so we decided to plop 'em together. Happy days.
March 4th
Today we actually got our hands on the materials, and started building the rocket. We had watched Andrew build a rocket motor with another group, but we didn't really understand the demonstration. He helped us with this first motor, because it was the first time that someone had attempted to do the one we were trying to build. It was kind of a trial and error thing. It ended up being a little messy, and there was a lot of clean up involved, which I wasn't expecting. There was a lot of steps, and we got to record our process, which helped a lot. When we finished the motor, we were able to test it out. Our pressures high was 2352 grams, easily beating out all of the previous motors that were tested. We were so happy! There were a lot of people in the class who told us that it wasn't going to work, or who were very skeptical of us. We managed to prove them wrong! Won't be the last time that that happens.
March 7th
Today, Monique and I built our second motor. We were happy that we could try to build it ourselves, but it was very difficult to remember all of the steps. We ended up having Andrew help us again. We decided to make some changes to what we put in our original motor. This motor would have 13 grams of black powder and 12 grams of sugar fuel. We wanted to see if this would up the pressure. This time we really paid attention to how the motor was being made, as we didn't want to have help on our final. Luckily, we were able to test this motor, because it seemed a little rainy today. We got a high of 2568. That's awesome! Now we know that if we up the black powder fuel a little more, we would get an ideal pressure. Since we finished all of this during first period, we were able to go with our friends Hannah and Sophie to Vons in order to gather some rocket motor tubes. Unfortunately there were none available.
March 8th-11th
For the duration of the rest of the week, every other group thought it would be a smart idea to get started on their first rocket motor, so we quickly ran out of supplies to make any. Monique and I decided to work on our VR goggles, and research on that. You can read all about that in my previous post.
March 14th
Today we tried to start on our final rocket, but things were getting in the way. Apparently our rocket motor tube was too small to fit into the newest contraption that was built to keep it together. Now we need to wait our turn.
March 15th-16th
For the past couple of days, Monique and I have finally managed to finish our rocket motor! It took quite a while, but that was due to everyone trying to finish up before break, and constantly running out of materials that we need. But we managed to do it! Our final rocket motor consists of 15 grams black powder and 10 grams sugar fuel. We decided on this based off of our previous launches, and the results of those. Now we got to put it on the shelf until next section. In celebration, we took our victory lap straight to Vons, where we collected a bunch of rocket motor tubes for the class (Big shoutout to Aurellio from produce, you rock man!). That's it for the rocket project in this section, stay tuned for the next!
FINAL REFLECTION:
I would say that this section was definitely the most interesting in regards to this rocket project. It was awesome learning about the different parts of a motor, and being able to constantly improve our model. Making these huge motors were definitely a challenge compared to the previous motors we made, which couldn't have been bigger than the size of my pinkie. As always, a little bit of a challenge is a good thing, and it really pushed Monique and I to test our limits. It was great being able to work with her again, and I'm sure (more like positive, I mean, c'mon) that we will continue to be partners in the future. She really helped out a lot, and brought a lot to our little group. She was able to help me de-stress when I really felt the pressures of this section, and was able to help me tackle all of this work little by little. We problem-solved a lot in this section, and a lot of deep breaths were needed. In the end, we pulled through, and I'm really proud with how far we've come. I'm incredibly awed that our rocket motor ended up being so good, despite what everyone else thought. It was nice to go back to the drawing board and think of unique ways to build a motor. We even used some of the knowledge we had gained from our independent lab, and applied it to this project. That was also fun. Overall, I would say learning about these kinds of motors was really cool, and I'm excited to make some more in the future. Stay tuned for the next section, as it will bring many more crazy adventures with these rockets.
Data Collection-
Sum of Thrust: 1180.79 grams
Total Impulse: 11.57 newtons
Average Thrust: 3.98 newtons
#TeamYOLO
As always, a video of all of the blood, sweat, tears, and stained hands. Also, another video of the final motor testing. Our teacher freaks out. It's awesome.
February 24th - 26th
Monique and I researched the difference between sugar fuel and black powder. So far, we can't decide which is better. They both seem cool in their own ways. Black powder makes the rocket get off the ground a lot faster than the sugar fuel, but the sugar fuel allows us to have a higher and steadier flight. At this point, we are thinking of just doing both. More to come.
February 29th - March 3rd
For the past couple of days, Monique and I have been checking in with Andrew to make sure that we can move ahead in this project. Fortunately, we got approved with our proposal. We wanted to do half black powder, half sugar fuel. We would layer it. We want to put the black powder on the bottom of the motor, so the rocket would be able to get off the ground pretty quickly. We would then put the sugar fuel mixed with iron oxide, so the duration of the flight is nice and steady. That't the logic of the plan, explained by our teacher. He said that no one in his previous classes has thought of that or tried it. Little does he know, we just couldn't decide on which one to use, so we decided to plop 'em together. Happy days.
March 4th
Today we actually got our hands on the materials, and started building the rocket. We had watched Andrew build a rocket motor with another group, but we didn't really understand the demonstration. He helped us with this first motor, because it was the first time that someone had attempted to do the one we were trying to build. It was kind of a trial and error thing. It ended up being a little messy, and there was a lot of clean up involved, which I wasn't expecting. There was a lot of steps, and we got to record our process, which helped a lot. When we finished the motor, we were able to test it out. Our pressures high was 2352 grams, easily beating out all of the previous motors that were tested. We were so happy! There were a lot of people in the class who told us that it wasn't going to work, or who were very skeptical of us. We managed to prove them wrong! Won't be the last time that that happens.
March 7th
Today, Monique and I built our second motor. We were happy that we could try to build it ourselves, but it was very difficult to remember all of the steps. We ended up having Andrew help us again. We decided to make some changes to what we put in our original motor. This motor would have 13 grams of black powder and 12 grams of sugar fuel. We wanted to see if this would up the pressure. This time we really paid attention to how the motor was being made, as we didn't want to have help on our final. Luckily, we were able to test this motor, because it seemed a little rainy today. We got a high of 2568. That's awesome! Now we know that if we up the black powder fuel a little more, we would get an ideal pressure. Since we finished all of this during first period, we were able to go with our friends Hannah and Sophie to Vons in order to gather some rocket motor tubes. Unfortunately there were none available.
March 8th-11th
For the duration of the rest of the week, every other group thought it would be a smart idea to get started on their first rocket motor, so we quickly ran out of supplies to make any. Monique and I decided to work on our VR goggles, and research on that. You can read all about that in my previous post.
March 14th
Today we tried to start on our final rocket, but things were getting in the way. Apparently our rocket motor tube was too small to fit into the newest contraption that was built to keep it together. Now we need to wait our turn.
March 15th-16th
For the past couple of days, Monique and I have finally managed to finish our rocket motor! It took quite a while, but that was due to everyone trying to finish up before break, and constantly running out of materials that we need. But we managed to do it! Our final rocket motor consists of 15 grams black powder and 10 grams sugar fuel. We decided on this based off of our previous launches, and the results of those. Now we got to put it on the shelf until next section. In celebration, we took our victory lap straight to Vons, where we collected a bunch of rocket motor tubes for the class (Big shoutout to Aurellio from produce, you rock man!). That's it for the rocket project in this section, stay tuned for the next!
FINAL REFLECTION:
I would say that this section was definitely the most interesting in regards to this rocket project. It was awesome learning about the different parts of a motor, and being able to constantly improve our model. Making these huge motors were definitely a challenge compared to the previous motors we made, which couldn't have been bigger than the size of my pinkie. As always, a little bit of a challenge is a good thing, and it really pushed Monique and I to test our limits. It was great being able to work with her again, and I'm sure (more like positive, I mean, c'mon) that we will continue to be partners in the future. She really helped out a lot, and brought a lot to our little group. She was able to help me de-stress when I really felt the pressures of this section, and was able to help me tackle all of this work little by little. We problem-solved a lot in this section, and a lot of deep breaths were needed. In the end, we pulled through, and I'm really proud with how far we've come. I'm incredibly awed that our rocket motor ended up being so good, despite what everyone else thought. It was nice to go back to the drawing board and think of unique ways to build a motor. We even used some of the knowledge we had gained from our independent lab, and applied it to this project. That was also fun. Overall, I would say learning about these kinds of motors was really cool, and I'm excited to make some more in the future. Stay tuned for the next section, as it will bring many more crazy adventures with these rockets.
Data Collection-
Sum of Thrust: 1180.79 grams
Total Impulse: 11.57 newtons
Average Thrust: 3.98 newtons
#TeamYOLO
As always, a video of all of the blood, sweat, tears, and stained hands. Also, another video of the final motor testing. Our teacher freaks out. It's awesome.
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