Section four |
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Now that this project is complete, I feel pretty accomplished. Just like the first rocket project, it felt great to see the rocket actually fly and work very well. There were a lot of stressful moments making the rocket but I can put those moments away and enjoy the final outcome. What I think stood out from the rocket project is that our rocket was able to hold an object inside of it, like a Lego man or a quail egg. Our rocket was pretty short in height so the motor with it's ejection charge was too tall for the rocket, a long part of the charge was taken out to make the motor shorter. Duct tape was able to hold the charge firmly in place. Duct tape also help the cargo spot in place in place because it was sort of loose. At the launch the ejection charge worked like we wanted it to, but the explosion melted the parachute a little but, causing the parachute to not be able to unfold. The rocket took of at tan angle but it still flew really high and far. The landing only broke two of the fins.
What I took away project was mainly being able to get comfortable making the rockets. The motors that we had were only able to launch rockets under a certain weigh so I had to really consider what I could add to the rocket for the most optimal performance. Another thing that really mattered was the center of mass. In the rocket there is a spot where the weight is evenly distributed. I had to make sure that the center of mass was around the middle of the rocket and not the top or the bottom.
I learned that I can be a leader in my group I saw myself being very organised with what was happening with the group work. I have a tenancy to be better with hands on work like making rockets but the problem I had was making sure I had the materials so I can actually work. There were some days here I had trouble with finding things to do because I didn't have supplies to do anything.
I collaborated well with the people in my group; Juan, Melany and Alec. I contributed to my group as sort of a leader in the first weeks of the project myself and the group saw me as a leader that would keep everyone organised and working efficiently. As a group in this project I feel that we could have done better in managing our time and resources, we were able to work really hard nearing the end of the project and make the rocket look great and work well.
If I could do this project again, I would make my rocket a little more original. I would make the body of the rocket with a different material and make it taller, I could have also put cushioning inside the cargo place so it can actually have a quail egg inside of the rocket. But looking at what happened in the launch we count be able to put one in there because the parachute melted. I would make the fins on the rocket larger, even though I wanted the fins to be small, they were a little too small. Finally I want to find a way to make the rocket launch straight up and not like an angle like it did in our video.
I think the project was good, I feel like I could have learned more about rockets but that was probably for me to figure out and explore on my own. I do have a basic knowledge, maybe I could have been able to get more into deeper calculations with equations and such, but that isn't really too fun so I would be fine with a small introduction to something like that.
What I took away project was mainly being able to get comfortable making the rockets. The motors that we had were only able to launch rockets under a certain weigh so I had to really consider what I could add to the rocket for the most optimal performance. Another thing that really mattered was the center of mass. In the rocket there is a spot where the weight is evenly distributed. I had to make sure that the center of mass was around the middle of the rocket and not the top or the bottom.
I learned that I can be a leader in my group I saw myself being very organised with what was happening with the group work. I have a tenancy to be better with hands on work like making rockets but the problem I had was making sure I had the materials so I can actually work. There were some days here I had trouble with finding things to do because I didn't have supplies to do anything.
I collaborated well with the people in my group; Juan, Melany and Alec. I contributed to my group as sort of a leader in the first weeks of the project myself and the group saw me as a leader that would keep everyone organised and working efficiently. As a group in this project I feel that we could have done better in managing our time and resources, we were able to work really hard nearing the end of the project and make the rocket look great and work well.
If I could do this project again, I would make my rocket a little more original. I would make the body of the rocket with a different material and make it taller, I could have also put cushioning inside the cargo place so it can actually have a quail egg inside of the rocket. But looking at what happened in the launch we count be able to put one in there because the parachute melted. I would make the fins on the rocket larger, even though I wanted the fins to be small, they were a little too small. Finally I want to find a way to make the rocket launch straight up and not like an angle like it did in our video.
I think the project was good, I feel like I could have learned more about rockets but that was probably for me to figure out and explore on my own. I do have a basic knowledge, maybe I could have been able to get more into deeper calculations with equations and such, but that isn't really too fun so I would be fine with a small introduction to something like that.
11/19: Rocket Blueprint
Section three |
11/13: Finishing motors
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My group was finally able to test our rocket motor, I was very surprised with the results because our rocket turned into a CATO (catastrophe at take off.) But I feel that I am very satisfied with my rocket and the overall strength of its thrust. To the left is our rocket thrust curve, that shows the rockets thrust that it gave off from readings taken at the test, you can see how much the rocket jumped near the end, at the very end of the line is where the rocket had a CATO. I really enjoyed working with my partners Melany and Alec, I feel like we all contributed even work in making this rocket this rocket motor happen and make progress through this project.
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11/10: Earth Science, Making rocks
It is important to understand earth science because we live on the earth, it is great to know about what we live on and what the earth is. I wanted to learn more about atoms and how they react to each other; while doing this I was able to learn more about the periodic table, which is a really cool thing to know. I used to see the periodic table as just one huge mess of letters and numbers on a poster with elements I never heard of or ever hear of, but now I keep finding more and more about it.
What information did we learn or what we needed to know to know whats happening. The earth is made up of four components from the inside: the inner core, outer core, mantle and crust. The crust is where we live on, it is about the same thickness off an apple, it is made up of rocks and things like dirt. The mantle is 97% silicone and oxygen, it is the area that cause the "tectonic plates" on the crust to move, thus causing earthquakes, mountains and volcanoes. On the periodic table, there is a cool thing where the more an atom is closer the top left of the table, the more "electronegative" it will be. Being eletronegative means that an atom will more likely take electrons from other atoms, so being close to the bottom right of the table will make something "electropositive." In this lab, we made these cool looking crystals and payed attention to how the crystals formed and overall observed. We used calcium chloride, cobalt chloride and copper sulfate. Calcium chloride's crystals formed slowly, it was salt white and it grew to form almost an Albert Einstein looking hairstyle in a test tube. It was definitely the slowest one but it was very cool overtime to observe. Cobalt chloride was extremely fast when it grew, right when it was added to the water it immediately was growing to the top of the tube. For a little while the crystal was a dark red color, then it went into a navy blue color with a little bit of green when the crystal finished growing. Lastly, copper sulfate was a little weird, when it was added in to the water it slowly grew, then made a little refuge at the top of the water. There were translucent blue crystals connecting the bottom of the vials copper sulfate with the top, then we noticed that the crystals at the top of the vial blocked off the water and made sort of a cover, like ice freezing over a lake. |
Crust - Rocks and such
Mantle - Oxygen and silicon Outer Core - Liquid iron and nickel Inner Core - Solid iron and nickel |
11/3: H2O Combustion
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When I originally thought of doing a lab like this, I thought that making water would be a really interesting thing to do. I later was able to get some background information about this topic in a molecular level and then I felt very compelled to do this lab of H2O combustion.
Atoms combine in ratios so each atom gets their own share in electrons. Compounds want to me more stable, to lower their energy that they give out so they can be in a more stable form. So if you overload or add enough energy to an atom it will go into a reaction where it goes into a reaction/combustion, releasing energy to become more stable. |
What happened in this lab is we got strips of magnesium, we coiled the strips and placed them inside a mix of water and citric acid. After that we placed a balloon on top of the beaker then waited. The balloon kept expanding from the what was happening in the beaker, what i think was happening is the reaction from the magnesium and citric acid could have made the magnesium overload to where it had to become more stable. The magnesium soon began to dissolve, I don't know if it was in the water or if it was into the balloon; when there was no more magnesium we took off the balloon and tied it off with whatever made it expand. The balloons surprisingly were able to float like a normal helium balloon, other groups had balloons where it wasn't levitating enough, levitated too much or it got neutral buoyancy (it wasn't dropping or floating too high up, it stayed in one spot in the air.
11/2: Rocket Design
Group: Matthew, Alec, Melany
Rocket Fuel: Black Powder Nozzle Length: 3/14'' Rocket Core: Half Core |
We chose Black powder for fuel with a half core because we want the rocket to burn up quickly at the beginning and then burn up more fuel later in flight. As a group we came up with the name Prince Charming, it sounded like an interesting name and we all agreed on it.
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10/22: Rocket motor research, basically
Black Powder: Black powder rocket propellant is very similar in makeup to old-fashioned gunpowder. These are usually designed with with end burners
Potassium Nitrate/Sugar Rocket: Good with core burner, doesn't burn as fast as black powder.
Potassium Nitrate/Sugar Rocket: Good with core burner, doesn't burn as fast as black powder.
10/19: Planning for the next two weeks
These are my plans for the next two weeks, I will be focusing on working on rocket motors and then researching about rocks. On tuesday of week two I will be part of a class lab.
UPDATE, 10/22: I might just be working on the engine project for the next two weeks. I will use teacher guided labs for the rest of the points. |
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Section two |
10/15: Scratch built rocket launch
The rocket worked really well, it launched as great as a scratch build rocket, maybe even better. I spent time with my group making a rocket build from scratch. It was a little higher than a foot high and about 4 feet across, we made the whole rocket from scratch but not the motor. The rocket launched as well as a model rocket, maybe even better amazingly.
I didn't really have high hopes for this rocket, I kinda thought it was sloppy and such but I still took pride into the rocket. It didn't look as clean as the model rocket but it flew as great as one. Everything with the rocket worked, the way it flew really gave me the idea that each part to the rocket was made and designed well. The only thing I don't think well was our nose cone, it's a good nose cone and helped great but we didn't have it attached to the one under. The nose cone that is showing is a last minute one we put on for some extra weight with some coins on it. What I am gonna take away from this experience is how I built my rocket, looking back at it now I feel like the steps are simple to make a rocket from scratch. Next time I build a rocket I feel like I can make one quicker and as a better rocket in general than this one.
I didn't really have high hopes for this rocket, I kinda thought it was sloppy and such but I still took pride into the rocket. It didn't look as clean as the model rocket but it flew as great as one. Everything with the rocket worked, the way it flew really gave me the idea that each part to the rocket was made and designed well. The only thing I don't think well was our nose cone, it's a good nose cone and helped great but we didn't have it attached to the one under. The nose cone that is showing is a last minute one we put on for some extra weight with some coins on it. What I am gonna take away from this experience is how I built my rocket, looking back at it now I feel like the steps are simple to make a rocket from scratch. Next time I build a rocket I feel like I can make one quicker and as a better rocket in general than this one.
10/14: Model rocket launch
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Me and my partner Natalie made a model rocket from a kit. We launched the rocket using a C6-5 motor and the rocket launched almost out of sight, the six in the motor name means that the motor will burn for 6 seconds. A rocket engine propels by burning up the fuel it has, the exhaust of the fuel shoots the opposite way the rocket is being launched, like water coming out of a fire hose. If a person that was holding the fire hose was on a skateboard, he would be propelled back. The rocket flew up so high, almost out of sight then the parachute deployed right as it started to fall, then the wind carried the rocket very far distance away.
I expected the rocket to launch high, but I didn't imagine that it would really jump as high as it did, I was amazed. The motor fit inside the rocket perfectly and launched great against the wind, it was angled so it still went upwards really well against the heavy wind. The parachute deployed and it parachuted down perfectly, but for some reason there was a bit of a burn on the parachute. The recovery wadding was good, but it partially didn't do well because the engine was able to burn the parachute a tiny bit. I learned a bit about each part of a rocket, how the part works and where it comes in handy to the rocket. I got a basic idea of how rocket engines work and I will be able to learn more about it later this year. I found really interesting that the small rocket engine had like a blast that launches out the nose cone to help the parachute come out. What I would do differently next time i'd like to make time so I can also learn about a more larger, NASA kind of rocket.
I expected the rocket to launch high, but I didn't imagine that it would really jump as high as it did, I was amazed. The motor fit inside the rocket perfectly and launched great against the wind, it was angled so it still went upwards really well against the heavy wind. The parachute deployed and it parachuted down perfectly, but for some reason there was a bit of a burn on the parachute. The recovery wadding was good, but it partially didn't do well because the engine was able to burn the parachute a tiny bit. I learned a bit about each part of a rocket, how the part works and where it comes in handy to the rocket. I got a basic idea of how rocket engines work and I will be able to learn more about it later this year. I found really interesting that the small rocket engine had like a blast that launches out the nose cone to help the parachute come out. What I would do differently next time i'd like to make time so I can also learn about a more larger, NASA kind of rocket.
10/13: Flame test Lab
How does fire change color, What elements are behind the change of color? Each atom absorbs elements in a different way, it is the atoms moving closer to the nucleus and it gives off a special light, different atoms give off different colors. I was able to see a handful of metal salts being burnt and there were really cool colors and some were only orange like the fire you see all the time.
I like working with the classroom, I like working in groups, I like working alone. But when I work I do find guidance helpful to me if I cant lead myself through a lab. I wouldn't have had all the materials to do this lab so having the teacher lead through this experiment and give knowledge I actually would have found of my own was very helpful to this experience. What I can takeaway from this experience is how fire can change color and how fire actually works. I was able to see colors that I never seen before in fire and how fire can change to the color on a molecular level. |
Fe: Orange
Li: Red Na: Yellow Orange K: Violet Sr: Red-orange Cu: Green Mg: White B: Green |
10/5: Sodium Polyacrylate
Sodium Polyacrylate is made up of Carbon, Hydrogen and oxygen. Water has a positive charge on one molecule and a negative charge on another, the sodium polyacrylate molecule pulls in the water molecules charge and attaches to the water molecule and it can keep grabbing more and more which makes the size larger and larger. It has the ability to absorb up to 200 to 300 times more that its original size of water. This isn't something that you would inhale or eat.
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9/29: "Out of Space," close up photos
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1: I took a picture of a friends phone screen, the glass looked really broken and messed up and I could see all the details of the broken glass.
2: This is a picture of the padding on the back of my backpack close up. I was able to see the it and all the material very close up. 3: I took a picture of a motherboard, I like this one because of the effect the blue studs give poking up being the main focus with the green board in the background. 4: I took off the rubber to my earbuds to take this photo, I got a nice view on the lacing of the metal on the speaker. |
In the process of this experiment I took a handful of photos chosen four of them because I didn't think I could really narrow myself down to one photo, also this is my photo bank with every shot. I chosen these four photos as my favorite pictures for a lot of reasons, first of all I feel like these four photos show the most detail to something someone wouldn't look at right away. Out of all the photo's I would say that my friends phone screen would be the best one. I chosen this because of just how different this looks from normal shattered glass or a broken screen, there is a lot more detail to it because of how much detail you can see from it, the glass in some parts looks more weathered but not shattered. I also like how much the glass is broken, there is a lot of distinct pieces of glass in the photo.
I used a macro lens on my phone camera to take these photos, it was a clipon that I put on the front of my phone camera to zoom in. The lens get amazing focus on things if I put the camera right up to whatever I want to take a photo of, I used my default camera app on my phone. Some photos I took I also zoomed in using my camera zoom along with the macro lens.
I walked around looking at things in the lab, if it was things from my backpack or someone else's I wanted to get a picture of it. I walked around and tried to take the most photos I could take. What I found interesting from what I observed was how close I got to some objects. There was some things I never thought of getting a closer view on, for example the second photo which is the padding on my backpack. I never took that close of a look at the lining of it, but with the macro lens it gave me that feeling of curiosity to explore and just look closely at everything. Some of my friends also helped me with looking closely at thing because they were as interesting in the macro shots as I was.
I was wondering with the macro lens, why does the photo blur if the object of focus is far away, it has a special spot in distance where things are in perfect detail and why is that too? The science behind photography is being sensitive to light, like our eyes. A digital camera takes the light from what you want to take a photo of and focuses it through the lens into a sensor made of silicone, it's a grid of things called "photosites" which are sensitive to light. These can also be called pixels, there is countless amounts of these in a camera which makes up a photo. Back then when cameras weren't digital, the light would be recorded to a film. The reflected light off an object in the camera's field of view will make a chemical reaction on the film inside of the camera which records what you had in the camera's field of view.
If I were to continue this project, I would really like to go outside and take macro photos of outdoor things, maybe even bugs. I only took photo's of things inside the classroom and object's around me which only gave me close ups of man made things. I really think that going outside and take a closeup of maybe a piece of grass, or even a bee would look amazing close up.
I used a macro lens on my phone camera to take these photos, it was a clipon that I put on the front of my phone camera to zoom in. The lens get amazing focus on things if I put the camera right up to whatever I want to take a photo of, I used my default camera app on my phone. Some photos I took I also zoomed in using my camera zoom along with the macro lens.
I walked around looking at things in the lab, if it was things from my backpack or someone else's I wanted to get a picture of it. I walked around and tried to take the most photos I could take. What I found interesting from what I observed was how close I got to some objects. There was some things I never thought of getting a closer view on, for example the second photo which is the padding on my backpack. I never took that close of a look at the lining of it, but with the macro lens it gave me that feeling of curiosity to explore and just look closely at everything. Some of my friends also helped me with looking closely at thing because they were as interesting in the macro shots as I was.
I was wondering with the macro lens, why does the photo blur if the object of focus is far away, it has a special spot in distance where things are in perfect detail and why is that too? The science behind photography is being sensitive to light, like our eyes. A digital camera takes the light from what you want to take a photo of and focuses it through the lens into a sensor made of silicone, it's a grid of things called "photosites" which are sensitive to light. These can also be called pixels, there is countless amounts of these in a camera which makes up a photo. Back then when cameras weren't digital, the light would be recorded to a film. The reflected light off an object in the camera's field of view will make a chemical reaction on the film inside of the camera which records what you had in the camera's field of view.
If I were to continue this project, I would really like to go outside and take macro photos of outdoor things, maybe even bugs. I only took photo's of things inside the classroom and object's around me which only gave me close ups of man made things. I really think that going outside and take a closeup of maybe a piece of grass, or even a bee would look amazing close up.
Section one |
9/18: Lava Lamp so far
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So far with our lava lamp, we have got our tin can for a base, and put an outlet chord in the bottom of it so our light bulb can stay inside there. We have our bottle and we just need to add liquids. We are using salt water, fresh water and benzyl alcohol, the alcohol is gonna be the lava and we will color it using sharpie ink.
Science behind lava lamps: Density is the measurement of how compact a substance is. The benzyl alcohol isn't able to mix with water so it will sink down to the bottom of the glass. Like hot air rises, the benzyl alcohol will do the same and rise in the glass without mixing in with the water. |
9/14/15: Hopping coin
On a molecular level, when we applied warmth the the chilled bottle, it warmed up the molecules and it increases the spacing between the molecules and the "equilibrium distance" causing some molecules to escape and make the coin pop up. The equilibrium is the distance between molecules.
I worked with Adarius on this project, I think we did really well as a group, we both did as much work as each other in this. I didn't see us splitting up the work load we just did everything together. If I could do this again, I would try this with different kind of bottle's, different glass and different kinds of bottles. I would also record the amount of times the coin would jump and leave the bottle in water for shorter and longer times. I would work with Adarius again, he is a hard worker and a great contribution to a group. I wouldn't do this experiment again, this is a very small experiment that's very simple. The next experiment I wanna do would be pretty large and span over multiple topics in chemistry. |
THERMAL EXPANSION: This is what the experiment was based around. Thermal expansion is what happens when something or matter changes in volume when it changes in temperature with heat. How it worked here is we put a glass bottle face down in cold water with a quarter, after it chilled for a while we took it out and placed the coin on the mouth of the bottle. Adarius put his hands on the neck of the bottle warming up the bottle and the air inside of it expanded. So the air was escaping making the coin hop.
The experiment went great, honestly I thought that I didn't chill the bottle enough, we didn't have access to ice cubes to chill the water so it was cold from the sink. The experiment worked to the extent that after we released our hands the coin hopped a couple more times after. You can see the video of it here The results I got were desirable, I didn't think I would have at first but the result was surprising, it took an amount of time before the coin jumped up and amazed me. What I think it really took was patience to do this, I was honestly ready to just take the coin off the bottle and give up because I thought it wouldn't work at first. I think I performed well in this activity, me and my partner were able to collaborate well and quickly and thoroughly complete this experiment. |
9/10/15: Worksheet 1.1
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In this week I've been working on a worksheet about the basic topics of chemistry. It went over matter, substance, elements, atoms, compounds and mixtures. To the left is the first draft created. I also completed a packet going over most of the same topics of chemistry.
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9/2/15: Dry Ice lab
In this experiment, my table group and I were experimenting with dry ice. We put it the ice in water, we slid it around the table and had some fun with the ice. The ice was always releasing carbon dioxide, when we put it in the water the ice intensely bubbled, releasing carbon dioxide, it wouldn't stop. We then put soap in the water and it made bubbles filled with carbon dioxide.
What I really found interesting was when I took the dry ice out of the water, it wasn't even wet. I was thinking because the ice let out so much carbon dioxide, the bubbling was like soda fizz x20 with larger bubbles. There was a little bit of water on the table, I wiped up most of it then kept experimenting with the dry ice. I slid it over the water, and the path the ice took didn't change the water or move it. The ice must have glided over the it or the water was just really thin.
The results were interesting, it was barely like normal ice and behaved differently. When you left dry ice out for a while, it melted into carbon dioxide.
I worked in a group of four, there were people roaming from other tables so I got to collaborate with them too. Us as a group performed well, we all communicated well and all came up with ways to experiment with the dry ice.
If I could do this over again, I would think outside the box more and experiment it with other things. I saw another group use coins with dry ice and our group stuck with what we had and didn't experiment too far.
What I really found interesting was when I took the dry ice out of the water, it wasn't even wet. I was thinking because the ice let out so much carbon dioxide, the bubbling was like soda fizz x20 with larger bubbles. There was a little bit of water on the table, I wiped up most of it then kept experimenting with the dry ice. I slid it over the water, and the path the ice took didn't change the water or move it. The ice must have glided over the it or the water was just really thin.
The results were interesting, it was barely like normal ice and behaved differently. When you left dry ice out for a while, it melted into carbon dioxide.
I worked in a group of four, there were people roaming from other tables so I got to collaborate with them too. Us as a group performed well, we all communicated well and all came up with ways to experiment with the dry ice.
If I could do this over again, I would think outside the box more and experiment it with other things. I saw another group use coins with dry ice and our group stuck with what we had and didn't experiment too far.
9/1/15: Oobleck labs
The purpose of this lab exercise was to get us thinking about solids, liquids and gases from "oobleck." Oobleck is very interesting, it is a mix of cornstarch & water. When I touched it, I couldn't tell if it was a solid or a liquid because when I was first picking it up, it was really hard, that i t got really wet the more I interacted with the oobleck. I learned a little more about analyzing things in a lab, if it's playing with the subor looking at it. In conclusion, I think oobleck is a solid, and a liquid
Oobleck, I think moves with the heat. The molecules are super sensitive with the heat, the substance rapidly turned into liquid and out of heat the substance cools down quickly and gets hard.
Oobleck, I think moves with the heat. The molecules are super sensitive with the heat, the substance rapidly turned into liquid and out of heat the substance cools down quickly and gets hard.
8/28/15: Lab safety drawing
8/26/15: "Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted"
The quote above was from an interview with Neil Tyson and Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy. What really struck me about this interview is the point of view that Neil really takes on science and how he makes it sound so fascinating and thought-provoking. At the end of the interview he had to explain science in ten words or less, and his response was really intriguing: "Words that make questing may not be questions at all."
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