For this project we got into groups and were tasked to make a simple four panel, four fin rocket. When we started building this rocket we had no idea what we were doing. We started by watching the video that Andrew made and then got right to cutting the panels. It was kinda confusing because there was not much detail in the video, but we got the panels cut with little struggle. The next thing we did was the gluing. The gluing was pretty difficult because we kept getting our fingers stuck to the rocket. once we got the middle glued it was easy to do the rest. When we started the sanding, with thought it was going to be a quick thing, but it actually took longer than we thought. It could've also been that it was our first time building a rocket. After the sanding we just had to cut out some fins and paint it. The fins were really easy to make and the painting wasn't that bad. It was just really hard to find enough paint so we did a splatter pattern. It turned out nice. The only other thing we had to do is build the motor. Building the motor was a lot of hard work because we had to build more than one. The motor was really hard to make. We had a lot of trouble keeping the second piece of foil in. We had to redo the motor almost five times because the paper would get pushed down or the foil would get stuck, but we finally got it.
It was really interesting to learn how to build a rocket to be light enough and aerodynamic. On the rocket everything has to be equal or the rocket will fly weirdly. Everything on the rocket has to be balanced. We used balsa wood to make it because it is really light. To make sure that the rocket flies well, it is best to keep it under nine grams.
I was expecting the rocket to blow up when we launched it. It actually did really well and it didn't break. I wish that we would've packet the fuel in more so that the rocket took off faster. If I had to do this again I would definitely make the cuts cleaner for the panels. It made it difficult to glue when the pieces didn't match up. This project went by really quickly, I wish we had spent more time learning about the rockets. I had so much fun with this project, I got to learn from my mistakes many times. It was really frustrating at some points but, I got to learn to calm down and do it again. I hope to do more projects structured like this.
It was really interesting to learn how to build a rocket to be light enough and aerodynamic. On the rocket everything has to be equal or the rocket will fly weirdly. Everything on the rocket has to be balanced. We used balsa wood to make it because it is really light. To make sure that the rocket flies well, it is best to keep it under nine grams.
I was expecting the rocket to blow up when we launched it. It actually did really well and it didn't break. I wish that we would've packet the fuel in more so that the rocket took off faster. If I had to do this again I would definitely make the cuts cleaner for the panels. It made it difficult to glue when the pieces didn't match up. This project went by really quickly, I wish we had spent more time learning about the rockets. I had so much fun with this project, I got to learn from my mistakes many times. It was really frustrating at some points but, I got to learn to calm down and do it again. I hope to do more projects structured like this.