How did it work? What happened?
The first motor we made was to test to see if we knew how to make it correctly. We tested it as a bottle rocket so that if it were to explode, it wouldn't ruin our rocket, it would just ruin the stick that it was on. When we tested the bottle rocket, it didn't work as well as we wanted it to. We watched as other groups launched theirs and we were excited to watch ours do the same. Once we launched it off, it didn't go very high into the air and as soon as it went up, it turned around and hit the floor. We figured out that the reason our bottle rocket didn't go as high as we wanted it to was because the nozzle came off. The way to fix this for our next motor is to make sure we close the end better and check that everything is tight enough. The next motor we made, the same thing happened. Our nozzle came off and it didn't go very high. It was really sad that our motors never turned out the way we wanted them to. What were your expectations? While watching everyone else's rockets go really high up in the air, I thought our rocket would do the same. But when we launched ours, the results were a lot less then what I was expecting which was disappointing. But it wasn't all bad because mistakes are meant to be learned from so on our next motor we will make sure to pack everything in tight enough so the nozzle won't fall off. What Worked? Crystal, Caitlin and I all worked well as a group and we also did a good job (in my opinion) building our rocket. I think our rocket turned out looking really good and we all split the work pretty equally. We all helped to build the rocket and motors, Caitlin took lots of pictures, Crystal painted the rocket, and I went to get materials when they were needed. What didn't work? I think our rockets didn't really work that well but other then that everything was good. The motors that we made had the nozzles fly off but the rocket still went up into the air at least. Other than our rocket not going as high as we wanted it to, our project turned out pretty well and there weren't many things that went wrong for us. What did you learn or take away from the rocket design and construction from this experience? (what is important for building rockets?) I learned how to build a rocket out of balsa wood which wasn't actually as hard I expected it to be. I also learned how to build my own rocket motor. This project was kind of fun for me. I enjoyed having control over how our rocket looked and making the motor and learning new things. Before we started this project, I wasn't excited to do it because I thought we would get an option in all the projects we did in this class. But once we started doing this project, I actually enjoyed doing it. If you had to do this again, would you do anything differently next time? If I did this project again, I would really try and work on making the motors work better. For example I would want our rocket to go higher and not have the nozzle of the motor come off. I really think that the motor is the only part of this project that should be fixed. Other than that I think overall we did a pretty good job of everything else.
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Looking back: What happened?
This lab worked out well for my group. It was kind of a weird experiment in my opinion because all we did was mix the sodium polyacrylate with different liquids seeing what absorbed and what didn't. It turned out that when we tried to mix it with milk it didn't work because milk doesn't have oxygen in it but gatorade worked because it has water in it which has oxygen in it. Looking Beyond: What do you Think Happened? What's the Science? Throughout this activity, it made me wonder why it absorbs so much. I learned that the reason it absorbs is because sodium polyacrylate powder is a really absorbent polymer, which means that it is made of a series of identical chains. When we added water, it absorbs many times its size and a polymeric gel forms. Looking Inward: Humans doing Science - Lab Practice Before this experiment, we were told that we were going to be experimenting with the stuff they put in diapers. So right away I could tell that whatever it was, it was going to be very absorbent. Looking Outward: Collaboration and Impact We did this experiment as a table group which was me, Caitlin, Crystal, Marcus and Jordan. We all work really good with each other and always try to have equal parts while experimenting on something. We all took turns stirring the water with the sodium polyacrylate and had different people in charge of getting the things we needed. Looking Forward: What Next? If I could do this again, I think I would choose to maybe learn more about the science behind it because even though we did take notes on the science, some of it confused me. I think I would be fine working with the same people I worked with because we all work pretty well together. Take Aways: From this activity, I learned to try new things while experimenting. What I mean by this is that we were told to do something specific but then Brayden said to try mixing the sodium polyacrylate with different liquids. I think we probably could have tried mixing it with more stuff instead of just water and milk.
End result: The nozzle of our rocket ended up coming off so we need to make sure we fix that for next time we make a motor. It also didn't go very high when we set it off so next time we really need to make sure everything is tightly packed and stays together.
Looking back: What happened?
This experiment was exciting to watch in my opinion. It was really interesting to me that we actually made water because I didn't know how to do that before this. The exciting part of this experiment was when we finished filling up our balloons with hydrogen, we put the balloons on the end of a stick, turned the lights off, and put the balloon over a candle that made the balloon explode which created water vapor. Looking Beyond: What do you Think Happened? What's the Science? We made water. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen so once we made the hydrogen from citric acid and magnesium, we popped the balloon which released the hydrogen into oxygen which is how we made traces of water or water vapor. I want to know how we can make more of the water, like enough to drink. How would we get it so we can see it? Looking Inward: Humans doing Science - Lab Practice Our end result turned out well. I could tell because some of the other groups around us had balloons that didn't float like ours did. The balloons that didn't float were like that because they had too much water so it was too heavy. In our balloon we were able to get most of the water out so it floated up pretty well. Looking Outward: Collaboration and Impact For this experiment, I worked with Caitlin, Crystal and Jordan (the people at my table). We all work very well together and we did a good job having equal parts in this. Looking Forward: What Next? If we did this again I would probably work with the same people and I would try to maybe put more magnesium in the citric acid to see if it would float better. I also kind of want to know how to make a lot of water that you can actually see instead of just water vapor. Take Aways: From this experiment, I learned how to create hydrogen and turn it into water which I never would have known how to do. It was interesting to see how the magnesium reacted when it was put in the citric acid and then see the result of that show from the balloon. 2/8: phases of matter worksheet
2/9: guided lab 2/10: make motor 2/11: make motor 2/12: no school 2/15: no school 2/16: brayden's lab 2/17: launch rockets 2/18: work on blog 2/19: worksheet For this project, I am in a group with Crystal and Caitlin. The three of us are going to build a rocket and a motor to go inside. To do this, we are going to watch the video Andrew made with the steps of making a rocket. We have decided to split up different sections of this project to work equally. We are all going to be a part of the building, I am going to take the lead while testing, Caitlin is going to be the photographer, and Crystal is going to decorate our rocket.
Our first step we need to take for this project is getting all the materials we need such as balsa wood, a knife or razor, and a ruler. Once we have all our materials, we need to cut the balsa wood into different pieces and super glue them together. After all the pieces of balsa wood are glued together, we are going to smooth down and shape the rocket with sandpaper. The next step is to cut out fins and glue them on. Then we'll build a lunch pad and motor. Last, we test the rocket and see how we did.
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CHEMISTRY blogFeel free to take a look around my blog. You can find all of my work from my 10th grade chemistry class and see what I have learned.
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