Bottle Rocket Project

Project Files

Instructions for Report on the Bottle Rocket.

Bottle Rocket Firings

September 14, 2006

Photos follow; scroll to the bottom for a link to a .MOV file of a launching.

Our efforts are scientific approaches to solving engineering problems efficiently.

Very often, the successful engineering design requires that a number of considerations be considered simultaneously.

A well-balanced bottle rocket with the right amount of water exhibits laminar nozzle flow in a launch.

A split second after launch, the expanding air cools and a fog forms from both the excess air in the bottle (top) and the source (bottom), while the water jet breaks up and falls away (right).

In these two rather amazing shot by Paris Von Lockette, we see turbulent nozzle flow at the very beginning of launch. The second picture of another rocket shows that this gives way to laminar flow just a few inches into launch.

Another pair of amazing shots by Paris Von Lockette show that these rockets have expelled all their water in about fifteen feet, than excess air is expelled in a burst of fog surrounding the end of the water column.

Yet another amazing shot by Paris Von Lockette shows that the velocity of the water jet is increasingly downrange as the rocket lifts off.

The session went extraordinarily well. Some of the rockets made it to the tree line, complicating distance measurements.

Movie of Rocket Firing (Requires Quicktime or RealPlayer)