On the 11th of June 2026 me, Harry Patrick and Harry Muir launched our bottle rocket into the sky. I will provide information on how we ended up launching our rocket and how well it did
Aim: The aim of this experiment was to test and study the velocity and distance travelled of our bottle rocket to learn how physics works. Another aim for this experiment was to get closer and have a fun time with friend making a creative project together. I’d say that this project went very well for us and I’m glad I got to work with both of the Harry’s.
Equipment/Method: The equipment we used were the bottle, tape, hot glue, cardboard and coloured felt. We glued 3 identical wings to each third of the rocket horizontally to make our rocket a more aerodynamic wind resistant cutting machine. For the tip we managed to tape paper around in a pyramid like shape.
Results: Our rocket spent roughly 1.73 seconds in the air while managing to make it 12.2 meters. If we calculate our distance and time by going 12.2 (distance) divide 1.73 (time) we get 7.05kph or 1.598 meters per second (speed)
Here are some pictures of our groups rocket.
Discussion: The forces on our rocket was mainly focused on thrust and weight. The power of the rocket and pumping it of air pushed our rocket forwards and gravity pulled it down, that means our forces were unbalanced. The net force on our object is not known but what I do know is that there was A LOT more push force then pull and a bunch more gravity then support. If you don’t know net force is the 4 different types of forces on an object and it tells us if the object is balanced or unbalanced. As soon as the rocket was launched all the force was focused on pushing the rocket into the air. But as gravity started pulling it and it ran out of push force it eventually tumbled to the ground because gravity is the strongest force in the end. When our rocket was in the air it landed on the left side of the launch site. What I think happened was that the wind that was being pushed/cut by the rocket when to the side and it would’ve been uneven on both sides so we lost our aerodynamic value and it tumbled off to the left. Out of everyone in the class we all had some pretty similar results, but some go further because they had sharper tips or it was more aerodynamic or did not go as far because it was less constructed.
Conclusion: I think that our bottle rocket was pretty successful. Compared to others I would say we were one of the best rockets because we were in the air for much longer. The way that the wind cut and flew around our rocket was really good and our rocket did get pretty far because of it. But there are quite a bit of improvements we could’ve added to insure our rocket was more successful. One of these being the tip. The tip of our rocket wasn’t very pointy and will a little full because we tried to fix it but it went bendy and did not look good. What we should’ve done is made the tip more carefully and add another layer or 2 of paper to make the paper more dense. Another thing I think we should’ve spent more time on is the wings of the rocket. The wings were not very good and it didn’t make our rocket as aerodynamic as we wanted it, What we should’ve done for this is add a few more that were sharper and replaced our old ones with a better designed shape. If we had these things then I think our rocket would’ve went way further and we would easily have the best results in the class with most air time and distance.
I am thankful for this experiment and thankful for working with both Harry’s they did really good on helping me design and build the rocket I was looking for at the time.