Tuesday 6 October 2015

Day 2 of our mission: Balloon rockets

Day 2 of our Space Week mission 
(to launch a rocket each day during science week).
Yesterday we launched straw (air) rockets.
Today we tried the balloon rockets.
First of all we tried to fly a rocket balloon straight to teacher.
This was impossible for us to do!
We had to think of ways in which we might be able to get the rocket to fly straight.
We noticed that the air coming out the back of the rocket pushes the rocket in the opposite direction.
One boy had a marvellous suggestion.
He thought that if you tied the rocket to a straight bottle then the rocket would probably fly straight.
We all thought this was a good idea!
Unfortunately, the rocket just fell to the floor (we think this is because the bottle was too heavy to allow the rocket to fly with it attached).
So next there was another wonderful suggestion.
We could use a string zip line and attach the rocket on to the string line.
We could use more thread to tie the rocket to the string, and then the rocket might fly straight.
This was a great idea, and it worked well at the start.
When the rocket lost some air, the balloon shrank and the rocket then escaped and flew where it wanted to.
In the end we used a straw on the zip line which we attached to the rocket.
This was the best suggestion of all and the rocket flew perfectly.
Now we had more questions:
What would happen if we tried this outside? (we will try this another day)
What would happen if we used two balloons? (we will, during our open day)
Could the rocket travel uphill if we held the two ends at different levels?
We tried this. Have a look at what happened!

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