Year 10 Forces and Motion Assessment Task – Bottle Rockets
Include the following in your bottle rocket blog post
Aim: To construct a bottle rocket that flew the furthest distance
Equipment: a plastic bottle, cardboard, golf ball, glue gun, glue, tape
Method:
- Use 1 or 2 plastic bottles and cut one of them through the top ⅓ of the bottle.
- Use that ⅓, cut out the cap/ drinking part of the bottle to the size that fits a golf ball.
- Put the golf ball in the hole and glue it as securely as possible, so the ball doesn’t pop out of place while landing.
- Stick the ⅓ part bottle with the golf ball stick on it to the main bottle’s bottom with a glue gun or duct tape
- Make a cardboard template of the wings of the rocket.
- Use the template to out line 4 more different wings to make it equally sized
- Secure the wings on the bottle where you think is more logically fitted for the rocket to fly further, and without launching issues.
- Ensure your bottle doesn’t have any holes or cuts on its body and fill about ⅓ of the rocket with water.
- Launch the rocket and record it distant and time, in meters and seconds.
Results: Include distance/ time recordings, your speed calculation, and picture.
| Rockets | Distance travelled (m) | Time taken (s) | Speed calculation (ms-1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMA ( Mya, Maggie, Amber) | 46.5 | 2.31 | S=D/T
S= 46.5/2.31 S=20.1 m/s |
| Franklin Benjamin stuart the IV
(Ysa, Narges, Alice) |
24.8 | 1.69 | S=D/T
S=24.8/1.69 S= 14.7 m/s |
| No (Olivia,Erika,Lily) | 52.1 | 3.40 | S=D/T
S= 52.1/ 3.40 S=15.3 m/s |
| Yes ( India) | 13.4 | 2.93 | S= D/T
S= 13.4/2.93 S= 4.57 m/s |
| Lukus and Jacob | 14.4 | 1.32 | S=D/T
S= 14.4/1.32 S= 10.9 m/s |
| Hi ( Hyacint and Sian) | 18.0 | 1.55 | S=D/T
S=18.0/1.55 S= 11.6 m/s |
Discussion:
- What are the forces acting on your bottle rocket?
The force that is acting on the rocket is Fweight, Flift, F pressure and F Drag/ F air-resistance.
Are they balanced/ unbalanced?
The force that is acting on the rocket is unbalanced, that’s why the rocket accelerated forward and got slowed and pulled down by Fweight and Fair-resistance instead of keeping going at a constant speed. This is because Fweight and Fair-resistance is larger than Flift and Fthrust while flying.
- What is net force and how does this relate to the forces acting on your bottle rocket?
Net force is the result of adding and subtracting the total force acting on the bottle rocket, which causes the rocket to to fly faster, slower, longer or shorter.
- What are the strength of forces acting on it at different stages?
At the start when the rocket took off at the plumber on an angle , the Fthrust acting on the bottle is very strong which helps the rocket to shoot out of the launching pad at an acceleration stage, that’s when Flift keeps the rocket up in the air, although it only have a little affect on the bottle since it F weight larger than Flift when the bottle is flying . After shooting, the Fthrust stopped acting on the rocket, that’s when Fair-resistance acted on the rocket and slowed it down. Though, the process Fweight has always been acting on the rocket. That’s why the rocket started by flying into the air on an angle due to Fthrust from the plumber, then got pulled down by Fweight and having contact to the ground.
- How do the forces acting on the bottle rocket affect the motion of the bottle rocket at different points?
F-thrust from the plumber helps the bottle accelerate when launching, which helps it fly up in the air. Flift helps keep the rocket in the air and F weight pulls the rocket down while flying, F air resistance slows down the rocket by pulling it back.
- Why do you think results may vary in the class?
This is because we built the rocket differently for each group in the class, this helps us see which of the rockets that is built more securely or scientifically that help the rocket stay up in the air longer and launch further.
Some of the group built their rocket lacking mass in the bottle making the bottle spin in the air and don’t go really far. Some others built their rocket too fractally, this made their rocket fall apart even before launching. Some others might fail to measure the right water amount to make the rocket fly further.
Conclusion:
- How was your bottle rocket successful/unsuccessful and why (relate your answer to physics ideas)?
My bottle rocket successfully launched and flew a pretty far distance. This might be because the golf ball at the top of our rocket has the right mass to help the rocket fly in the right direction and the right angle. This can make the rocket fly further and stay in the air for a longer duration.
- How could you improve it?
I could improve it by making the tip of the rocket smaller so that F air resistance will have less impact on the rocket, helping the bottle fly faster and further.
This Force diagram is when the bottle is flying up in the air. Therefore there is no Fthrust acting on the bottle anymore.
| Marking Rubric | Achieved | Merit | Excellence | |||||||||
| Aim | Relevant aim written | |||||||||||
| Equipment and method | Equipment used recorded and numbered logical method written | |||||||||||
| Results | Distance and time recorded.
Picture of bottle rocket included. |
Speed calculated | ||||||||||
| Discussion | Expected 50-100 words for discussion.
Names 4 forces acting on bottle rocket. States if forces are balanced or unbalanced. Relevant comment relating to variation in class results. |
Expected 100-250 words discussion.
Achieved criteria AND: States the relative strength of forces. Defines net force. Links variation in class results to one physics concept. |
Expected 250 – 500 words for discussion.
Merit criteria AND: Explains changes in the strength of forces and how changes affect motion throughout the journey of the bottle rockets Relates net force to forces on the bottle rockets. Links variation in class results to two physics concepts. |
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| Conclusion | Evaluates improvements. | Explains, using physics ideas, why improvements are necessary. | ||||||||||
| Sufficiency statement | ||||||||||||
| Achieved
(all A boxes) |
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| Merit
LM = one A + rest M M = all M HM = some M + some E |
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| Excellence
LE = one M + rest E E = all E HE = beyond E report |
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| Final grade | NA | A | M | E | ||||||||