Designing rockets part 2

This week at Stem club ( also known as spoff club by many) we followed on from designing our rockets to building them and some tweaking there designs to perfection.

Here are some of the designs members at Stem club designed:




The best of the Beth's- By Beth Roberts and Beth Curtis.

JJ 007 - By John Gan and Joe Smith

Out of this world-

SAS - By Sarah Cooper, Stephanie Stringer and Amy Mellor.

Fiery dragon - By Shane Plunkett, George Firth (Me!) , Alex Jackson and Ross Hope.

Star Stream

I am sorry I couldn't name all the rockets because I didn't know who's was who's.

Also here is a clip of Mr Chew's rocket blasting off !

STEM Club Contracts

Just a reminder about your STEM club contracts. We need them to be brought in by this Thursday, 27th November, so your membership can be registered officially. Our Club is being monitored by STEMnet - the organisation which is funding rockets and trips etc so we have to keep all our records (and blog) up to date!

On that note, the entries on the blog are fantastic - well done to those who have contributed posts and comments. It means that Mr White and I are up to date even though we missed last week.

If you have lost your contract you can find a copy on the school network in resources drive - R:\STEM. You can give them to me or Mr White at any time, including during Thursday's session.

Designing Rockets.

This week at Stem Club we started designing rockets in pairs which hopefully in a couple of weeks when we've built them we will be able to fire. Mr Chew showed us the one he had built. It was really pointy at the end and quite thick. It was green and silver and had the words 'brigshaw 1'. It had a small cylinder attached to it which went over a thin piece of metal in a upright position. Mr Chew then showed us the parts of the rocket and said we could touch and hold them . He then asked in pairs to create a detailed drawing of the rocket we'd like to build with all the measurements. Me and my partner decided on a long thin rocket with a pointy end. Others decided on a thick body with a curved end.
When we'd finished designing our rockets we went to the back of the P.E block. Mr Chew said he was going to fire his rocket. A crowd of people gathered including teachers and we counted down from 10. He set it off and it went vertical direction which was good as it went about 100m. However a parchute was supposed to come out and float down. It didn't. Mr Chew showed me the parachute after and he said the reason the parachute didn't come out is beacuse the gunpowder core was so hot it burnt through the insulation. He said that if he did it again he would have to put more insulation in preventing the parachute burning.

Analysing our results

Unfortunately John could not sign into blogger so I will be writing on behalf of John.

After we had split ourself into two groups half made clinometers (see below) whilst the other half made a graph and put last weeks results on to a spreadsheet.

The two factors we measured were the length that the rocket went and also the volume of the water.

First we signed into Brigshaw learning platform. After that we had to open up a spreadsheet in excel and we entered all of the information we had been given using formulas and cells. We highlighted the information and clicked on the button 'make table' in the toolbar at the top.

Then we turned the information into a scatter graph and we found that some were very innacurate so we had to delete some of the 'flukes'. After this we analysed the graph and saw that with no water the rocket wouldn't launch (too little pressure) and with one litre or more the 'rocket' also failed to launch. We found that the best amount of water to put in the two litre bottle was around 450 - 550ml which showed us that this would make the rocket launch the furthest.

Finally we presented the results to the other half of the class(those that had been making clinometers) and they said that this information was quite accurate. One student said 'We started off with around five hundred mililitres and we couldn't get it to take off.' There could be some improvements which we may discuss at a later date.

Making Clinometers

This week at Brigshaw STEM Club we split up into 2 groups and half made clinometers whilst the other half analysed last weeks results. I am writing about clinometers and John will tell you more about the analysis.

A clinometer is used to measure a tangent which is not measurable with a ruler or tape measure. They are mostly related to maths but can be used in geography as well.

First of all Mr Wayman showed us a demonstration of how to make clinometers first of all we had to cut out the template using scissors. Then we had to glue or cellotape the parts which we had cut in half and place symetrically onto either side of a piece of wood. This was perhaps the easiest bit.

Next we had to push tacks through the holes marked on the template this was difficult because it took a reasonable amount of pressure to push the tacks into the wood. Then we had to hammer a nail into the top of the wood this acted as a sight to measure our angle from. After this came the fiddly part, using a piece of thread we had to tie a knot around one of the side tacks and tie a nail onto the end which acted as a weight, this means that when you point the clinometer at the sky it will measure an angle. This was a good week even though our planned activity was postponed due to bad weather. Next week, remember that we are in S4 building wooden rockets.

Air-Pump Rockets!

This week at Brigshaw STEM Club we were given lots of plastic bottles, some foot pumps, some water and some string. We were then told we had to make rockets and get them as high into the sky as possible.

Hmm...well, we got it pretty quickly that we had to put the water into the bottles and pump them up with air, but it was easier said than done. We had to limit our water and most of it was lost when the bottles failed to take off and exploded onto the ground. The string also got a bit tangled because we practically had enough each to wrap round the whole school.

But after about an hour we had made some really successful models, and despite the extremely random paths they took into the air , they got really high (but not quite as high as the fireworks we saw in the background!). Next week we are making rockets that will run on gunpowder, which will probably be very unpredictable! :P

Balloon Rockets - 23rd Oct 2008

The proposed water and air rockets has had to be postponed due to the poor weather. Instead Mr Chew presented another problem - that of how to power a straw along a piece of string using nothing more than balloons, sellotape, card and paper clips.

Groups were formed who all approached the problem using different methods. Soon the lab was full of test rockets propelling along 2 metre pieces of string. Some methods were complicated, others simple, but all aiming toward the final showdown on the corridor.

These photos and videos show some of the groups preparing:

Mr Chew's final cryptic piece of advice was that the answer is right under your nose. No-one had deciphered what he meant as we made our way into the corridor to launch the rockets. Some very complicated designs went no more than a few centimetres whilst other simpler designs made it 4-5 metres. The design under your nose turned out to be the design on the sheet Mr Chew had given out. This was in fact the one that went the furthest, and the video below shows the winning rocket in action.

Hopefully the first week back after half term will see us outside launching the water and compressed air rockets!

Diet Coke and Mentos Lauches STEM club

The first ever STEM club met up on Thursday 16th October with a challenge to all the pupils. Who could cause the biggest eruption from a diet coke bottle using Mentos. For those of you who don't know what happens when Mentos and diet coke meet, click here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBo3HyQKO8&feature=related

After a demonstration in Mr Chew's room we all went outside where pupils were given 4 bottles of diet coke and a load of mentos to play with. After plenty of experimenting everyon was invited to demonstrate their best effort and see whose could erupt the highest. The results were recorded and will hopefully be uploaded here soon.

Some of the practice launches are below:

After deciding on the winning group, Mr White, Mr Wayman and Mr Chew demonstrated their novel ways for getting the highest eruption of diet coke. Mr Wayman's and Mr Chew's were so successful in fact that they got the overhanging edge of the sports hall covered in Diet Coke!

Next week is planned to be rocket launching, this time powered by nothing more than water and air!