Newton's 3rd Law of Motion

Newton's 3rd law states that every force has an equal and opposite reaction force. An example is pushing off the ground when on a skateboard. As you push back, you and the skateboard move forward. Our rocket is also a great example of this law. The pressure in the rocket causes the water to push out the bottom of the rocket. The water pushing out the bottom causes the rocket to fly.

Finished Rocket

This is our rocket with the nose cone and fins on it. We cut off the top of another 20oz Smart Water bottle and also cut off the mouth piece of the bottle. We then placed clay in it so that it was 20g lighter then our rocket. Next we taped the nose cone to the top of the rocket. This is what the rocket look like when it was completed.

This is a picture of our fins when they are glued together. We glued the non-colored cardboard sides together so they would stick together better. We also folded down the edges so that we could stick the fins on the rocket.

Construcing Fins

These are our fins that we cut out of cereal box before we glued them together for a more sturdy and thicker fin. Each fin is 4cm by 4cm.

Starting Our Rocket

We used a 20oz Smart Water bottle for our rocket. To place our four fins an equal distance around the bottle we took a string and wrapped it around the bottle then measured it. We found the circumference to be 21cm. Next we divided the 21cm by 4 to find the distance between each fin. Our fins were positioned 5.25cm apart. By placing the blue tape 5.25cm apart, we made sure that the fins would be an equal distance apart. It is extremely important for fins to have equal distances between each other in order for the rocket to have good rotation. The tape also provided an area to glue the fins on because gluing directly on the bottle would weaken the air chamber and cause the rocket to explode.