What material for making the wings will work best?

Hypothesis: If the wings for the rocket are made of plastic then the rocket will fly better
because they will slide through the air better and easier since they are more
aerodynamic.

Rocket Flight Depends on Wing Material

Wing Material Rocket Flight distance (meter) average flight
distance (meter)
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
cardboard 95 95 95
paper 15 15 15
plastic 70 80 100 83.33

Source: A u d r e y P r i n s , A m b e r
Unema , Alysha Lemmen
May, 2009

Controlled Variables: distance between wings,

number of wings, pop bottles, angle of shot,
amount of water in the bottles, size of the
wings.

Materials needed: two liter pop bottle, 20

ounce pop bottle, cardboard, plastic, paper,
scissors, duct tape.

Procedure: For our control we used a 2 liter

bottle for the body and put 400 mL in it. then
we used a 20 oz. bottle for the nose and filled
it to 100 mL. We placed three cardboard
wings in the center of the body. Those
wings are 10 x 5 cm and evenly spaced.
they are also covered in a layer of duct
tape.

For the material of the wings we will also

try plastic from a milk carton and paper
and we will cover each wing in a layer of
duct tape. Everything else from our
control rocket will be the same.

Prins_Audrey_L Friday, May 15, 2009 12:04:29 PM GMT-04:00

 Conclusion: Our data does not support our hypothesis because we thought the plastic
wings would be best because they could move through the air better but our data shows
the cardboard wings as being the best material because it flew 95 meters while the
plastic went 83.33 meters and the paper was the worst at 15 meters.

If we did this experiment again we would make sure that we covered the wings enough
so that they donʼt get wet. But we would make sure we have the same amount of duct
tape for each material so that it does not affect he flight. Something that could have
affected the flight of the rocket could be the weather conditions because the wind was
not the same everytime that we launched which could make our results vary.

Prins_Audrey_L Friday, May 15, 2009 12:04:29 PM GMT-04:00