- #1
narrator
- 228
- 12
Hi,
I'm wanting to do a fun numeracy exercise for my students. I'm planning to have them construct bottle rockets, take measurements and then calculate/graph how high their rockets get using simple triangulation. From that, I was hoping to get them to calculate what the thrust was of their individual rockets. It could turn into a competition for 3 categories: best made, highest launch, and greatest thrust.
What I need, is a formula to work out what the thrust is, from the height achieved, nozzle diameter and perhaps an average weight (from start to finish of the flight). Can anyone suggest a useable formula? And if anyone wants to suggest of a better way of approaching this, I'd love to hear.
As a bit of background, I teach/train numeracy to upper level HS students in a program for "disconnected school refusers" (15 to 18yo's). The program has 3 levels - foundation, intermediate and senior, but the senior level would be like year 10 mathematics, with the most difficult level being algebra (There is no trig' prescribed). (For those at foundation level, many don't have any higher than year 6.. but that's a whole other discussion.) As we have all levels generally in the one class, I hope to tailor the handouts to each of the levels.
Thanks for your consideration. :)
edit: As prompted by one of the answers so far, the bottle rocket type I was planning to use is like the one in this link.
I'm wanting to do a fun numeracy exercise for my students. I'm planning to have them construct bottle rockets, take measurements and then calculate/graph how high their rockets get using simple triangulation. From that, I was hoping to get them to calculate what the thrust was of their individual rockets. It could turn into a competition for 3 categories: best made, highest launch, and greatest thrust.
What I need, is a formula to work out what the thrust is, from the height achieved, nozzle diameter and perhaps an average weight (from start to finish of the flight). Can anyone suggest a useable formula? And if anyone wants to suggest of a better way of approaching this, I'd love to hear.
As a bit of background, I teach/train numeracy to upper level HS students in a program for "disconnected school refusers" (15 to 18yo's). The program has 3 levels - foundation, intermediate and senior, but the senior level would be like year 10 mathematics, with the most difficult level being algebra (There is no trig' prescribed). (For those at foundation level, many don't have any higher than year 6.. but that's a whole other discussion.) As we have all levels generally in the one class, I hope to tailor the handouts to each of the levels.
Thanks for your consideration. :)
edit: As prompted by one of the answers so far, the bottle rocket type I was planning to use is like the one in this link.
Last edited: