The final day of launching

Today was the day we've all waited for. We all launched our rockets and the end goal was to get 10 seconds in the air or more, if we really wanted to beat Mr. Adam's class. My group passed... yay. We are a little bit upset though. We did get 10 seconds but we really wanted to surpass our previous launch which was 13 seconds.

Our rocket had some great thought put into it and that resulted in a parachute, 4 fins and a detachable nose cone. We did take a good bit of time to make the parachute but in the end, it was worth it. The parachute did not deploy as planned today but that was due to our inadequate folding. The parachute got stuck in the nose cone. The string that was on our nose cone connecting it to the rocket also broke today. We ended up replacing the string with something thicker and stronger and that seemed to work well.  The one time the parachute deployed was utterly fantastic. The whole day led up to that moment and it finally happened.

Due to lack of PSI gauges on the pumps, we did not get an accurate reading of our PSI. We just pumped until we could pump no more. We decided that we were going to fill out 2 liter bottle half way with water. We tried that a few times and it did not work so we then changed our amount to just under half of the bottle and that worked for us.

This project taught me that in order for the rocket to float gently down to the ground we have to make sure that we have a parachute that is functional. It also taught me that you have to make sure that everything is in its proper place before you begin the process of launching the rocket. I also learned that you have to just keep on going because the result that you want to get will happen it just takes some time and patience.