Name: ______Date:____/____/______Block:____

IP 614

Pop Rockets Project

Exploring Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion

(Adopted from Teach Engineering 2006 Regents of the University of Colorado)

SAFETY NOTE:
  1. You must wear safety goggles throughout construction/launching!
  2. You MAY NOT eat the antacid tablets!
  3. Any horseplay during this lab earns you a grade of ZERO for the entire lab, and your entire team will be disqualified!

Objectives:

Design and build a model rocket around a film canister, which is used as the engine room of the rocket.

Interpret and apply Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion in a model rocket situation.

Collect and analyze data on model rocket launch distance, comparing to size or weight of the rocket.

Describe what factors an engineer must consider when designing a rocket.

Explore the importance of building a scale model for engineering projects.

Introduction:

How do engineers design a rocket that can fly though space? What kind of process does the engineer go through to design a rocket? As an engineering team, you are tasked with building a film canister rocket to fly the longest horizontal distance possible.

Typically, engineering design starts with some kind of brainstorming process where the engineering team will work to gather lots of ideas andresearch background knowledge needed for them to design a solution. To help you with your rocket design project, here issome background information gathered prior to your team meeting that might be helpful for your engineering team:

(1) Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion not only helps scientists to describe forces, it is also important in many real-world situations. Rocket design is one example where Newton’s 3rdLaw is extremely important. Other concepts about forces (such as thrust, drag, gravity) as well as design (such as stability) are also important key ideas for engineers to consider while designing and building a rocket for space.

(2) Rockets need a very strong engine to be propelled forward. Antacid has storedchemical potential energy in it, which can be released when with reacted with water.

(3) A sample image of one rocket design is attached.

**Note: Prototyping is an important step of engineering. Before building the final design, it is important for engineering team to build prototypes and test out some of the limits of the design. When testing a scale model, engineers can get an insight as to whether or not certain elements might fail, when it might fail, and if modification or redesign is needed. In this activity, your team will design one small-scale model rocket that can launch horizontally as far as possible.

Materials/Limitation:

Alka Seltzer (You are given a of 2 tablets per group for testing! You will ONLY be given ½ of the Alka Seltzer on the rocket launch day for the actual launch)

paper

sample rocket instruction sheet

scissors

tape

1 film canister with internal-sealing lid

safety goggles (You MUST wear safety goggles the WHOLE time while we are building, constructingand launching or your group will be disqualified!)

water

Building Day:

Don’t forget your safety goggles!

You will have one day to construct during class, and we will be launching the rocket in the next class. Therefore, it is your TEAM’s responsibility to build and document your design process. It is often important to keep a running documentation (we will discuss possible formats) for discussion and presentation purposes throughout the engineering design process. You may ONLY use the allotted material for testing andconstructing.

Launch Day:

Don’t forget your safety goggles!

Use complete sentences and answer on a separate sheet of paper).

  1. How tall is my rocket? (Unit: centimeters)
  2. How much does my rocket weigh? (Unit: grams)
  3. At the launch how far did my rocket go? (Unit: meters)

Clean and dry the film canisters after the launch. We will throw away the rockets but keep the film canisters.

Questions to Answer INDIVIDUALLY:

  1. What makes one rocket perform better than another?
  2. What is creating the thrust in our pop-rocket? (explain using your understanding of Newton’s 3rd Law of motion.)
  3. What can you do to make the rocket go further with relation to Newton’s 3rd Law of motion?
  4. How does building the model rocket help you analyze/understand real rockets?
  5. What are some problems with adding more and more tape to the rocket for stability purposes?
  6. What would you change about your rocket if you were to redesign it?