In class we made rockets made out of potassium nitrate, paper, 1 skewer, 1 fuse, aluminum foil, & tape.
Here's the steps:
1- wrap paper around big skewer and tape it down so that it will stay
2- grab a small piece of aluminum foil and stab into the tube. That will become the base
3- add powder and smash it in -this is the main aspect to it
4- top it off with aluminum
5- make a hole with a drill bit
6- add the fuse
7- tape the skewer onto the outside
What goes on?
When you light the fuse obviously the fire transfers up it lights up the powder which is fuel. After that since the power and thrust is pushing down the rocket pulls up and gets a consistent rate of force by rapidly going fast in speed. To better explain the action as to how rockets start and end here is a diagram.
Results: My partner and I were upset that our rocket did not work. I think what went wrong in this was maybe our cap. The rocket let out all of its force and didn't go up at all. The reason for that is not really determined yet but only because there could be a lot of things that can potentially be causing the rocket not to go up. Maybe there was too much inertia. Another thing is that the thing that Andrew was using to hold the rocket down was plastic and with heat plastic melts which could have led to the skewers getting stuck and holding the rocket down from launching.
My Partner & I are not rocket scientist so we tried to accomplish this project as best as we could but this was our first time doing it, and I am impressed with all the effort we put into this even though we kind of had to go through it blind folded.
If I could do this again then I would like to open up the rocket and see exactly what is missing and try to find an explanation as to why it didn't work that way I could know exactly what is missing. That way when we rebuild it, we know where and why to do things on it.
Here's the steps:
1- wrap paper around big skewer and tape it down so that it will stay
2- grab a small piece of aluminum foil and stab into the tube. That will become the base
3- add powder and smash it in -this is the main aspect to it
4- top it off with aluminum
5- make a hole with a drill bit
6- add the fuse
7- tape the skewer onto the outside
What goes on?
When you light the fuse obviously the fire transfers up it lights up the powder which is fuel. After that since the power and thrust is pushing down the rocket pulls up and gets a consistent rate of force by rapidly going fast in speed. To better explain the action as to how rockets start and end here is a diagram.
Results: My partner and I were upset that our rocket did not work. I think what went wrong in this was maybe our cap. The rocket let out all of its force and didn't go up at all. The reason for that is not really determined yet but only because there could be a lot of things that can potentially be causing the rocket not to go up. Maybe there was too much inertia. Another thing is that the thing that Andrew was using to hold the rocket down was plastic and with heat plastic melts which could have led to the skewers getting stuck and holding the rocket down from launching.
My Partner & I are not rocket scientist so we tried to accomplish this project as best as we could but this was our first time doing it, and I am impressed with all the effort we put into this even though we kind of had to go through it blind folded.
If I could do this again then I would like to open up the rocket and see exactly what is missing and try to find an explanation as to why it didn't work that way I could know exactly what is missing. That way when we rebuild it, we know where and why to do things on it.