The forces that act on a rocket are thrust, lift, drag, and weight. Thrust is the force that pushes the object upward. It can be described with Newtons Third Law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Lift is another force which causes the rocket to go forward, and it combats drag. Drag, also known as air resistance, is the force that pulls a rocket downwards. Weight is the mass of the object. If the rocket has too much weight it won't go far or high, but if it doesn't have enough weight it will be unstable. When designing the rocket I considered all of these forces. Here is a picture which shows how the forces affect a rocket:
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Bottle rockets have 3 main parts: the body, the fins, and the nose cone.
The Body--The bottle should be as aerodynamic as possible. For this the Perrier bottles work really well. They are skinny and curved with a thinner nozzle, which will make the rocket more aerodynamic and able to "cut" through the air. Another bottle with a similar shape is the Fruition bottles. Also, you can use sandpaper to make the bottle as smooth as possible.
The Fins-- These are to make the rocket more stable.The best amount of fins to add is three because they keep the rocket stable without adding too much weight. We decided to (maybe) use cardboard for the fins. We also decided to test both the triangle shape fins and the four-sided shape fins.
The Nose Cone- I found out that a parabolic (curved) shaped nose cone works the best for rockets that are at subsonic speeds, because it reduces drag.
^^^So there's my research for day 1!!
I also have smartwater that we can use too.
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