On Friday 7th July, We were joined by two special guests. They were here to develop our skills of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in our STEM day. The day began with a quick introduction about what our visitors did for a living and we were astounded at the engines and machines that they had built as part of their jobs. Who knew a job could be so fun.
We then used a set of instructions to build a rocket out of paper wrapped around and tube and made part of the tube closed at one end using sellotape. It was then time to test our product for the first time using an amazing, button activated compressor. We launched the rockets and recorded how far they flew, we reflected on the winning design and realised the tighter the paper was wrapped, the further the rocket travelled.
It was then time for our second attempt at making the rocket. We were shown that by adding mass to the rocket, instead of weighing it down, it actually allowed the rocket to travel further. With this knowledge, we changed our designs by adding stones to the top of the rocket and making sure the paper was rolled tightly.
Finally, it was time to retest our rockets and it was astonishing how much further the rockets travelled with the extra mass despite using the exact same pressure from the compressor. The two winning designs were then used in a ‘super launch’ where they were blasted with much higher pressure and rockets flew over the trees and out of the school!
We would like to thank our guests for their expertise. We had loads of fun and learnt a lot about how to make rockets. I guess rocket science isn’t that hard after all!