Bright, smoking objects fly up over the back of the school as junior Angelina Vinson watches her rocket’s success. Every year, students in Mr. Davis’s Pre AP Physics make and launch miniature rockets to get hands-on experience and understand the effects of air friction.
Among rumors of missiles landing on top of the roof or exploding in mid air lies a few shades of truth. Vinson worked with a group on a rocket that overshot every other rocket in their class. Their rocket shot straight up, and, when the parachute came out, it released loads of glitter.
“It glitter bombed the parking lot,” Vinson said. “For the next few days, when you walked outside and looked on the ground, it sparkled.”
Junior Taylor Ferguson, who helped build the glitter rocket, built another rocket with her own group.
“Mine wasn’t quite as great,” Ferguson said. “It went up maybe ten feet and then shot sideways, spiraling over to near the cafeteria.”
Physics students completed several labs this year, including a “car lab” where small carts crash together to model collisions and an “egg drop lab” where fortified eggs fell from the second floor to the ground below. Jade Mactavish helped build a protective shell of plastic cups, rubber bands, straws, tape and paper to protect her group’s egg, but the egg broke anyways.
“Our egg drop didn’t go very well,” Mactavish said. “We didn’t tie the rubber bands tight enough, so the egg slingshotted and smacked against the sides of the cups. There was no mess to clean up, though!”
Sean Lusk said the rockets were his favorite project so far because they called for innovation.
“This one was cool because you can get with a group and see what you can do,” Lusk said. “We could discuss it and go beyond the instructions. We experimented a little, but it’s hard because we only had one shot.”
