Rocket Science

This evening we went to a TAG event with our local homeschool group. The event was water bottle rockets. The kids taped a cardboard roll from paper towels to the top of a plastic soda or water bottle. Then they used sandpaper to scuff the flat sides and hot glue to glue on some fins for the rocket. They filled the bottle 1/2 full with water, then placed it on an apparatus that had a bicycle pump hooked up to it. The goal was to pump it up, then pull the plug which caused the compressed air to propel the rocket skyward. Really cool!! Two thumbs up! That's the most fun I've had since Adam's Birthday party when he was about 6 and the Round Rock Fire Department came out and let us go inside a firetruck! The guy who did the demonstrations is a physicist. He also did some demos before hand explaining the mass times force equals acceleration principle. We tested rockets with more or less water to see what would happen. Too much water prevented the rockets from going higher than about 40 feet. Some rockets went 100 feet or more. Thanks for the great opportunity!