PHASE 2 of Model Rocket - Launching StageThis is a continuation post of my first Model Rocket post. This includes the reflection of the whole entire experience, the questions I have, final outcome, etc. Purpose:
Group Members:
What happened? Another Rocket story, Near-death experience It is October 14th, 2015. And today is the day. The day where we set off our little rocket into the sky! I was very excited for this day, yet at the same time I was afraid of our little rocket failing miserably. I was confident in what we made but I still kept in mind that our rocket wasn't going to work 100% hands down for sure. Sadly Kazuha has left us, leaving Sammie and I as the only ones to fulfill the deed of letting our rocket go. Both Sammie and I had permission slips to go to fiesta island. So we both decided to go. Beforehand, we had to add the motor into it and all the last minute adjustments. We added the:
The photo below is our rocket before launching, in its final state. We then headed over to Fiesta Island with 5 other groups. After 10 minutes of driving, we arrived on the island. We walked to a clear area, dirt surrounding us. We set up our rocket launch pad right in the middle-ish of the dirt field. It was mixture of sand/dirt, so it made it hard to walk in. We volunteered as the first group to launch our rocket. I was honestly nervous to see what would happen. Both Sammie and I wanted to film the rocket being set up into the sky, so we let Braden launch our rocket himself. Now was the moment! It was history about to be made. We nervously watched as our baby was being lit up and shot into the sky. We stood back about 20 ft away as the rocket shot straight into the air. I couldn't catch the rocket as it flew into the sky very well with my phone, I realized how quickly it shot up there. In a matter of miliseconds, our rocket was already out of sight. I couldn't chase it with my eyes, for the white object seemed to fade into nothingness. My video wasn't very good for it lost the rocket at one point. Andrew had yelled during the video saying "It's parachutes out!" Sammie and I yelled with joy as our rocket was quickly being pulled by the wind into the far away hills of the island. It went so far, maybe even 100 ft or more away! I was blown away by how well our little rocket performed. Sammie and I ran towards it as we saw that it was slowly falling and landing. We ran in the dirt/sand, struggling to move quickly for the dirt got into our shoes and socks. We ran after Adarius and Skye who had just ran over to fetch it. We arrived at the hills, confused of where it could've landed. Skye and Adarius came and told us that it was around 10ft away from the water. Sammie and I jumped for joy, for that implied that it didn't just go far, it went REALLY far! Almost to the whole other area of Fiesta Island. I was proud of our rocket, and I was also proud of us as well as Kazuha who sadly couldn't be here to witness our work come to life today. We happily brought our not so damaged but kind of damp rocket back to the launching site. IT WAS A SUCCESS! Extra Story: All the other groups went. (We were the only girls there). And Adarius decided that he'll launch their scratch rocket. We all anticipated, Sammie and I finally making it back from the other side where our rocket landed. We all stood back. The rocket finally was launched and we laughed at how it zoomed in loops into the sky. It then turned at one point and faced our groups direction. It was like a missile was going to hit my face. It faced all of us and we panicked. Sammie and I jumped to the right as the rocket landed and made a crater into the group where Andrew and Braden were standing before it hit. We all laughed about it afterwards, saying that we can say that we almost got killed by a rocket :) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ What I learned/noticed?
Questions I had:
Afterthoughts: I regret underestimating our rocket and our work itself. I feel that we did a fair job at creating our rocket, and I shouldn't have discredited our work by simply saying "I feel like ours won't work...". I was totally proven wrong after our rocket was launched. It was one of the better rockets there today and I believe that it was the one that went farthest from launching site. The reason I doubted our rocket was because I checked it the day before and saw that our fins were completely off centered, they weren't perpendicular with each other. I thought that it would greatly affect the performance of our rocket. But to my surprise, the rocket worked very efficiently, and our uneven and sloppy fins didn't take away from it and it's performance in any way. I really enjoyed the build up from creating our rocket to finally seeing it being shot into the air. I am very much looking forward to seeing more launches and to building another rocket! This was just our first rocket, and it was a model rocket. I am interested to see how a scratch rocket would work and how we will build it and such. I hope I can continue to work with Sammie for I believe that we are a good team together. We got everything good on time, and although our rocket wasn't exactly perfect, look wise and such, it performed the best of its abilities, and MADE US PROUD! If I could do it differently: If I were to do this again, I would probably attend to the rocket better, I would probably check if it was straight and check if everything was fine before pushing through with it. I'm not sure if adjusting or fixing the crooked fins would make a difference, but I believe that it was sort of careless for me to just let it dry that way and to not do anything about it. I would also want to put a camera into the payload! I'm so angry I forgot about that. I was looking forward to it yesterday, seeing our rocket shoot into the sky in both our people point of view and the view of the rocket. I am not sure if it would've damaged that camera or what but I want to try to do that at some point. I really want to see a view of the sky from the rocket! I would also want to mark the distances of the rocket from launch site to landing point. I want to see which rockets went further, and to compare and contrast, possibly finding out what makes the rocket go highest or furthest. What I enjoyed? I honestly enjoyed the majority of the process that it took to make the rocket. I feel that it was a smart choice to do this in this section and I am very glad to be able to say that "I BUILT A ROCKET!" and that it actually worked efficiently. It was interesting seeing how the rocket comes all together. I didn't know whether or not the kit would be easy to follow, but after building it, I realized that it was a great way of getting amateurs like my group and I to build a very efficient rocket. People like us knew nothing about rockets and now we made one that worked well! I am very glad that I did this and I look forward to learning more about rockets and making more rockets. The best part was watching our little star covered "S.S.Bae Bray" fly into the sky. And being astonished at how high it went, to the point where we lost it with our eyes. We couldn't find it at first but we luckily saw where it landed. I am proud of the work my partners and I did. I sent the rocket video to Kazuha who is currently not with us, and she said it was amazing. The three of us did great work together. I am satisfied with our work done! Hooray! Group Work: I thought that my partnership with Sammie and Kazuha was great. We were a good group and I believe that we carried all of our responsibilities out well. We never had to put a pause to building rockets because one of the group members had unfinished business. We worked to get all our priorities done and we all moved ahead together. We each contributed, did our part. And it is thanks to all three of us that we made this successful rocket. I am happy to have been with these people. I look forward to working with Sammie again. And I hope that kazuha will see the rocket video
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