Three…two…one…BLAST OFF! If you ventured by our 10th grade science classes this week, you would have seen students preparing and launching microrockets. Putting their mathematical and computational thinking skills to the test, sophomores created plastic mini rockets out of pipet collection bulbs. They tested different ratios of hydrogen and oxygen gases by adding electrodes via a spark that helped generate a popping sound. The spark got the reactant particles to collide hard enough to initiate the reaction. The rockets launched from an exothermic (heat-producing) reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. “Students learned that the explosiveness of the reaction is greatest when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in the optimum proportion,” said Kelly Anderson, Upper School Science Teacher.
Their goal? Determine the most favorable ratio of hydrogen and oxygen to project the micro-explosive rockets the maximum distance.
Students had a lot of fun connecting the experiment to the lessons from class. Zoie Tolson ’24 shared, “The Microrocket Lab helped me implement ideas from class notes and lectures to real-life scenarios while also serving as a fun time to collaborate with classmates beyond our desks.”
An additional level of competitiveness also made the lesson engaging. “The microrockets lesson was a unique experiment in the way that we were in competition with the rest of our class,” shares Julie Qian ’24. “This, therefore, challenged my partner and me to find unique ways to launch our ‘rocket’ while staying within the lab constraints. An example was when we decided to leave more water at the end of our pipette rocket as we believed our gas mixture would then have more time to react when we launched it.”
“The microrockets experiment was a fun way to have a real experience after not being able to do labs,” explains Sawyer Bland ’24. “We were also able to have a bit of friendly competition with who could shoot it the farthest.”
What a fun way to learn about the importance of reactant quantities in product formation! Check out one of the launchings of a microrocket below!