Physics
The Rube Goldberg Project
The Rube Goldberg project evolved an actual machine, a sketch up, and calculations. The Machine was a wooden based series of steps that did a simple task, in our case make a snow cone, very complected. My group consisted of me, Alexa Dobbs, and Julianne Marqua. The sketch up was an online version of our Rube that we had to create. The calculations where scientific things like potential energy and conservation of energy that we had to calculate
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Rocket Project Reflection
During the initial test launch, I had high hopes for our rocket, The Ninja. Seeing as the exhibition was the next day, I was dreading the idea that it may blow up, forcing us to start over with such little time. My group and I filled our rocket and brought it to the launch pad on the test day. Little did we know that it would greatly impact our final launch. We launched it and during the launch realized it had a pressure leak. The pressure leak was a tiny hole in the chamber that let the water out and this greatly impacted our rockets capabilities. We fixed it with duct tape which helped the leak, but made the rocket heavy and less aerodynamic. Because of this, at the launch I had no doubt in my mind that the rocket would explode. On exhibition day, we loaded it and when it launched, not only did it not explode, but it went the third highest of any that had launched so far. I was completely not expecting it, so when it happened I immediately changed my mind set to a positive one, where we actually had a chance of doing well. It started its decent back to the ground and the parachute started to deploy, but stopped half way out. It hit the ground without fully deploying. I was disappointed, but the rocket had already done far better than I expected, so I didn’t care too much. Overall all I can really say about it is that I was happy about how it turned out.
If I could say one thing the to the rocket builders it would be to take it slowly. You have far more time than you think you do. In our case, we rushed and didn’t do a good job with the gluing and other things like that. In the end it just wasted time because we had to start over due to failure with the first launch. Besides that, and a few minor complications, I think the project went well for my group. We worked well together, and the overall outcome was good. In addition, I learned a lot about how low my sanity level is through trial and error, and looking back on it now, the only thing that I can think that I would redo if I got the chance to redo it, is I would make a better, and more permanent fix to the pressure leak in The Ninja’s pressure chamber. Over all, it was a great project and a fun way to practice Newton’s laws and basic project and group work.
During the initial test launch, I had high hopes for our rocket, The Ninja. Seeing as the exhibition was the next day, I was dreading the idea that it may blow up, forcing us to start over with such little time. My group and I filled our rocket and brought it to the launch pad on the test day. Little did we know that it would greatly impact our final launch. We launched it and during the launch realized it had a pressure leak. The pressure leak was a tiny hole in the chamber that let the water out and this greatly impacted our rockets capabilities. We fixed it with duct tape which helped the leak, but made the rocket heavy and less aerodynamic. Because of this, at the launch I had no doubt in my mind that the rocket would explode. On exhibition day, we loaded it and when it launched, not only did it not explode, but it went the third highest of any that had launched so far. I was completely not expecting it, so when it happened I immediately changed my mind set to a positive one, where we actually had a chance of doing well. It started its decent back to the ground and the parachute started to deploy, but stopped half way out. It hit the ground without fully deploying. I was disappointed, but the rocket had already done far better than I expected, so I didn’t care too much. Overall all I can really say about it is that I was happy about how it turned out.
If I could say one thing the to the rocket builders it would be to take it slowly. You have far more time than you think you do. In our case, we rushed and didn’t do a good job with the gluing and other things like that. In the end it just wasted time because we had to start over due to failure with the first launch. Besides that, and a few minor complications, I think the project went well for my group. We worked well together, and the overall outcome was good. In addition, I learned a lot about how low my sanity level is through trial and error, and looking back on it now, the only thing that I can think that I would redo if I got the chance to redo it, is I would make a better, and more permanent fix to the pressure leak in The Ninja’s pressure chamber. Over all, it was a great project and a fun way to practice Newton’s laws and basic project and group work.
My calculation process for the information above was fairly simple. I had the time it took the rocket to fly, 6.85 seconds, the angle it flew, 60 degrees, and the observation distance, 53 meters. To start we figured out the max height of our rocket, 91.8 meters. We used trigonometry. tan(60)=x/53. Using algebra we found x as 91.8. We then found our actual velocity, which was 26.8 m/s. After this we found flight times. The first was the actual flight time which was 6.85 s. Our theoretical flight time was 8.6567 s. Both of these times had some error from our parachute, 21%. Our error percentage was low and I think it had something due to the fact that our parachute only partially deployed. It was also pretty small. This caused very little friction when our rocket was fell back down from its launch. These are the final calculations of The Ninja.