Day 3

Today was Day 3 for our bottle rocket experiment. Today we started from scratch, after losing our rocket to the Midkiff Tree on Day 2. The new bottle we modified with 3 triangular fins, much like the fins we used on Day 2. The fins were made out of cardboard and were completely covered with duct tape. The fins were then "hot glued" onto the bottom of the rocket and reinforced with duct tape. To place the center of mass higher than the center of pressure, we added a moderately heavy piece of wood to the top of our rocket. This piece of wood was duct taped on very securely so that it would not fall off in mid-flight. Our additions to today's model were the cone and parachute. Our cone, we wanted to make extremely light, so that it would fall off at the peak of the rocket's flight. So we constructed a cone shaped object with a few pieces of paper and placed it on the top of a bottle. For our parachute, we connected a plastic bag to the bottle with a long piece of string. We tucked the bag under the cone after folding it up neatly and winding the string around the bag. This completed our new model.

For Launch 1, our cone stayed securely on the rocket for its entire flight. This was a failure, because the parachute could not escape the cone and inflate to slow down the rockets descend. The rocket stayed in the air for only 3.72 seconds.

For Launch 2, we made sure that our cone was on very loosely. At the peak of its launch, the rocket's cone fell off and the parachute deployed. The problem was that the parachute didn't inflate at all, so the parachute was a failure. For our next launch day we are going to make adjustments on the model of the parachute. The rocket stayed in the air for 4.86 seconds.

For Launch 3, took off the cone and the parachute to see if our cone was keeping the rocket from traveling as high as it did on day 2. The launch was extremely successful. It stayed in the air for 7.72 seconds. We concluded that the cone needs to be heavy, to ensure that it launches as high as possible. We will make appropriate modifications for our next launch.