Blast off with physics to learn about the forces that make rockets fly! Build a spaghetti accelerometer, use balloons to test the power of thrust, and launch your own seltzer rockets. Discover the amazing world of rockets and the principles that power them.
On September 21, 120 local students, the majority from New Haven, attended Girls Science Investigations: The World of Rockets. The event was hosted by Yale Physics, with the support of Yale Pathways to Science. Forty-five members of the Yale community volunteered, led by Allison Culbert, graduate student in physics and GSI Student Coordinator; Caitlin Hansen, lecturer in physics; and Rona Ramos, Yale Physics graduate services coordinator.
Hansen said, “We designed these activities to be affordable and easy for students to do on their own at home. We made accelerometers out of spaghetti and marshmallows, inertia hats out of wire and bouncy balls, and tiny bottle rockets with alka seltzer fuel.”
Students watched Ramos and Yale Physics instructional support specialist Paul Noel launch model rockets in the YSB courtyard with a custom rocket launch pad designed by Noel for the event.
Noel said, “Even though we lost a few rockets due to the strong wind conditions, it was a lot of fun for everyone to watch the rockets soar to the top of Kline Tower.”
Hansen, along with Emily Pottebaum—graduate student in physics and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab—and supported by Noel, performed a physics demonstration show “The Ultimate Rocket Showdown: Physics at Full Throttle,” where the students first made predictions about whether a small or a large bottle rocket would be more powerful and then watched the outcome. Audience members learned all about the “fire triangle” through some demonstrations of cornstarch fireballs, rapidly condensing soda cans, and the strength of friction in a physics textbook tug-a-war.
Pottebaum said, “The demo show was a blast! With the biggest blast of all being my super big super cool bottle rocket that totally went higher than Caitlin’s small rocket.”