October 24, 2013 - Risa & Ellie
At exhibition, the angle that our rocket flew was 47 degrees and its actual hang time was 4.2 seconds.The observation table was about 174 feet away from the launch pad. When we calculated our max height in meters we imagined the observation distance and the max height as the legs of a triangle. Then we were able to calculate the max height by using tangent. The calculation involved multiplying tangent by our angle 47 degrees and then multiplying that by 53, the observation in meters. The next thing that we were required to calculate was velocity. The average actual velocity for the whole trip was calculated by multiplying the max height, 56.84 meters, by 2, and then dividing that by the time, 4.2 seconds. The velocity was 27.07 m/s for the whole trip. For the calculation from our max height to our theoretical hang time we found the square root of 56.84 divided by 4.9, one half of the acceleration rate. The answer for the theoretical time was around 6.81 seconds. To find the percent error we subtracted the theoretical time from the actual time, divided that by the theoretical time, and then ..multiplied that by 100%. According to our calculation, we had a 38.34% error. Our rocket’s percent error was relatively low because it was aerodynamic, but it was also incredibly heavy for its size.