As students go about their lives in school, many of them are disengaged and what they do learn, they manage to forget over the matter of a few days. Many teachers have tried to find new ways of teaching that will both interest the students and help them to retain what they learn. Some of these ideas have worked well, while others do the opposite of what they are meant to achieve and disengage the students even more. One activity that a few organizations, such as Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Core, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Girl Scouts, have begun to use is the activity of building model rockets. Model rocketry has been a fun pass-time for many youth for years; they find it fascinating to watch something that they built soar hundreds of feet into the air, and then as the parachute deploys, see their masterpiece drift slowly back to them. All that these clubs are doing is taking this activity and using it to explain and teach the many concepts that go into the launching of the rocket. James Goll and Lindsay Wlkinson, professors at Edgewood University, once said rockets can spark “classroom discussions about the chemistry topics of homogeneity, intermolecular interactions, kinetics, thermodynamics, and oxidation—reduction chemistry” (Goll & Wilkinson). In addition, Sylvia Nolte (Ed. D., Estes Educator) said, “rocketry is an excellent means of teaching the scientific concepts of aerodynamics and Newton’s Laws of Motion. It integrates well with math in calculating formulas, problem solving and determining altitude and speed.” (Nolte) One example where rockets help students in school is science. Chemistry, one branch of science, is a huge part of rocket building because of the fact that the fuel is comp... ... middle of paper ... ...act right surface area, while making a shape that allows the rocket to do things that the designer desires such as be free standing, to spin on the way down as to stay straight, or even just to look cool. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the ways that model rocketry can help students. Model rocketry is a way that any organization can help their members to understand anything that they are trying to learn. Model rocketry will keep students engaged, help them retain what they learn, and let teachers teach in a new way. Works Cited Goll, James G., and Lindsay Wilkinson. “Teaching Chemistry Using October Sky." Edgewood.edu. Edgewood College, n.d. Web. 7 Mar. 2014 Nolte, Sylvia, Ed. D. “hysics and Model Rockets.” EstesEducator.com. Ed. Thomas E. Beach, Ph. D., Tim V. Milligan, A.E., and Ann Grimm. Estes-Cox Corp, 20123. Web. 13 Mar. 2014
During the late 1950’s the space race began. This was a race to see who could achieve the most space firsts, between the USA and Russia. Sonny, O’Dell, Sherman, Roy Lee and Quentin live in Coalwood, West Virginia.The space race inspired these boys, who decide to call themselves the Rocket Boys, to make their own rockets. The BCMA (Big Creek Missile Agency) was born when Sonny called a meeting with his friends in his room and discussed how he wanted to build rockets. With the help from the a man at the town’s machine shop, Mr.Bykovski, the BCMA built its first rocket, called Auk I. The rocket was named after an extinct bird that was unable to fly. Auk I was equipped with a wooden bullet shaped nose cone, an aluminum tubing body, fins, and a soldered washer at the bottom. The boys mixed together black powder and postage stamp glue to act as fuel for their rocket. The rocket flew up 6ft, and then fell back down. The rocket boys later found out that the reason their rocket stopped flying was because the solder melted. The BCMA was happy with the result from the rocket, because it was their first ever rocket to fly.
Bottle rockets are great models to examine Newton’s three laws of motion. The bottle rocket will remain on the ground until an unbalanced force, water, thrusts the rocket upward. This is defined by Newton’s first law of motion: an object at rest stays at rest or an object in motion, stays in motion (in the same direction/at the same speed) unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. It is also known as the law of inertia.
A rocket in its simplest form is a chamber enclosing a gas under pressure. A small opening at one end of the chamber allows the gas to escape, and in doing so provides a thrust that propels the rocket in the opposite direction. Newton’s laws can be used to explain this his laws in the simplest terms can be explained like this:
When Homer and his friends fired one of the first rockets off and it crashed into one of the company buildings, Homer's dad said not to shoot anymore rockets on company property. The mining company owns all of Coalwood so they walked eight miles to Snakeroot where they can fire as many rockets as they wanted. They named it Coalwood Missile Agency. They built a fort to stand behind when they fired rockets and a launch pad. They walked there everyday and launched a different rocket and everyday the rockets improved. There were a couple people in town that helped them with welding the nozzles on and ordering the right kind of metal to take the heat. Miss Reilly, the science teacher, bought Homer a book on building rockets for his birthday. Quiten, the local nerd, and Homer mixed certain chemicals in science class to make a better gas to make a better and more powerful launch. With this new formula the rockets became more successful but they would blow up in the air but they never gave up. They fixed the rocket when they put solid gas made out of moonshine inside the rocket. ...
Segal, E. A., Cimino, A. N., Gerdes, K. E., Harmon, J. K., & Wagaman, M. (2013). A
As a country we need to start investing more money and research into space technology. Programs currently exist for this effort, but the potential for research and progress is limited by a lack of funding; compared to other government funded programs, aerospace funding is pitiful. Continued research in space technology is a necessary step in our growth and development not just as a country but also as entire human race. If we are to achieve this goal, it is necessary to increase funding for space research and technology and consider the possibility of colonizing outer space. If we limit our existence to the planet Earth, and continue to drain the resources on this planet, we will destroy the only home we have.
The center of pressure is the point where the total sum of a pressure field acts on a body, causing a force to act through that point. The center of gravity must be above the center of pressure in order for the rocket to work. After consulting the rocket readings, we discovered that as air rushes past the rocket, the larger air resistance forces below the center of gravity than above the center of gravity will help to straighten it out, pushing the tail of the rocket below the nose and producing stable flight. The swing test was a test used to confirm the rocket’s stability. It consisted of someone swinging our rocket around on a string, seeing if it would fall apart. It can also be used to determine how aerodynamic the rocket is. To increase the stability, we made sure the center of gravity was above the center of pressure and we used fins to stabilize our rocket.
During the movie October Sky, it first covers a kid named Homer Hickam from a mining town called Coalwood, he was only whole one future in sight, to work in the local coal mine like his father, However, everything changes for Homer while the first artificial satellite, goes into orbit. Homer grows very inspired to learn more about how to build rockets. With his friends and the local nerd, Homer sets to do just that by trial and a lot of error. Unfortunately, only one teacher in his high school understands their efforts and lets them know that they could become contenders in the national science fair with college scholarships being the
Sitting in AP Chemistry lab class, thinking about how much I didn't fit in with all the brilliant overachievers, I began to wonder why I took the course. While I knew it was because I have a passion for chemistry, I didn't know what exactly entices me about the subject. Moments later, I found my answer; I love experimenting. Reading textbooks and listening to lectures are definitely informative, but they aren't the only ways to learn. Learning through experience and physical results is the most interesting and fun way to understand topics. Reading about chemical reactions and actually performing and seeing results is another, which is why the “volcanic eruption” project is so popular. Instead of trusting everything textbooks say, people can
Ultimately, Rocket Boys is about much more than rockets. As Hickam states, "Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine."
Hypergols are highly toxic and must be used with extreme care. Hypergolic fuels commonly include hydrazine, monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine (UDMH). Hydrazine gives the best performance as a rocket fuel for most situations. Rockets have improved greatly since the time of Robert Hutchings Goddard, now they are able to go further and faster than ever before. The SLS will be NASA’s first exploration-class vehicle that will take Astronauts to mars for the first time in history. It will expand our reach in the solar system, launching crews aboard the new Orion spacecraft to explore multiple, deep-space destinations including mars. A fleet of robotic spacecraft and rovers are already on and around Mars, but to fly to and land humans safely on Mars requires a next-generation spacecraft this is where the SLS will come into play too complete that job. This “Rockets” essay helped me learn about the science of how rockets work such as the propellants used and how newton’s laws of motion affect rockets. Researching rockets led to mea learning about the culture of rockets and how they were first invented and used by the Chinese against the Mongols to defend their
Aerospace engineers examine, analyze, design, produce, and occasionally install components that make up aircraft, spacecraft, high-altitude vehicles, and high-altitude delivery systems (missiles). Satisfaction with the romantic image of rocket building can buoy many engineers through the highly anonymous work environments that many of them face. Individuals don't assemble rockets; teams do, dozens of teams working in highly supervised coordination. An aerospace engineer plays some part on one of the teams, spending more of her time (roughly 70 percent) in a lab, at a computer, and assembling reports than doing anything else. Not being able to see the "big picture" frustrates some professionals. The path to becoming an aerospace engineer is a rigorous one, but those who manage to survive the difficult lift-off emerge with an above-average degree of career satisfaction.
...The International Space Station is much more than just an orbiting lab. It is the first of its kind, and has already made discoveries which have saved lives. Because of its tremendous support, the station has grown to be a massive and expensive project, but is well worth it. Even today, new discoveries are being made about the properties of space. Not only is the station beneficial to adult scientists, but it has inspired thousands of children as well. Annual events are held which enable Boy Scouts to talk via radio waves to the astronauts running the space station. Since children are the future of this world, it is vital to introduce them to these subjects, as it will encourage them to dream big and maybe be up there themselves one day. The International Space Station has been immensely beneficial to society, and will continue doing so for decades to come.
Relating to the Audience: I believe that the Space Shuttle program has fascinated most if not all of you at some point of time, so much so that it has driven some of us to pursue Aerospace Engineering. Thus, it is a good idea to explore the program’s end result, the reason why it was started in the first place – To build the International Space Station.
Supporting the relevance of my choice of topic is (Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, 2011) who says that we must “…ignite new passion for aviation among our youth and develop them.” Furthermore, the existence of the Singapore Youth Flying Club , where Singaporean youths are receiving government sponsored flying trainings showing that government is already pushing aviation to the youths.