During this project, we have made a water rockets using thick paper, cardboard paper, tape, and 2 pet bottles. These rockets that we make has to survive 3 launches without breaking it and make sure it will fly as high as possible. We had 4 groups in this project and each group will design a water rocket.

Aim of this project:

Make a water rocket and compare each design from each group. Observe the difference between and look at some advantages and disadvantages of those each rocket design.

Prediction:

First, I thought group 2′s rocket would fly the highest because the tip looked vary sharp and also the rocket was vary light.

Method:

1. Make a diagram and some plans and designs.

2. Start to make the wings. Cut the cardboard paper to make 4 wings. Use the exact measurements according to our design.

3. Use the tape to stable the wings onto the lower part of the bottle. The distance between each wings must be the same. (Tip: make the wings a little diagonal so the rocket will spin as it goes up. This will reduce the amount of friction which will reduce the amount of the force going against the direction of the rocket.)

4. Make a circle on an thick paper. Cut apart of it like in the diagram I drew, roll it up and stable it on the top of the rocket.

5. Decorate the rocket in the colorful colors so it is easier to find on the sky.

At last, our rocket came out to be completely different compared to the diagrams.

Results:

As a result, group 1 had won the competition. I am vary sorry that there were some technical problems so I could not put on a video about one of our launches.

Overall…

My prediction was incorrect. The group 1 had the best rocket design compared to the rest of our class. I think their design won because their design wasn’t heavy and it was mostly covered in tape which would make it smoother. I think this test was not a fair test because there are limited amount of certain kinds of bottles to use so the quicker group gets the better bottle. From this project, I learned that it is better to let the rocket go straight up so the area that is actually slicing through the air has less area. Next time, I would make the tip of the rocket sharper and smoother.

After we have launched all of the rockets, we thought, why not launch an empty bottle for fun? So here is the result of it.

Some random things I’m wondering about after this project…

The empty bottle went higher compared to the rockets. I started wondering if the friction and all the designs did actually matter. Why don’t everyone use a bottle shaped rocket in the real launching instead of adding all these weight on to the rocket? (researching…)