Project Report: The Rocket

Chemistry

Members:
Li Jung Huang- Kelly
Alinnan Thiptanakit- Jinny
Rokaya Abdulaal- Kaya
Prame Ruangkana- Tuang
Teacher: Miss Patraphorn Sanguansat
Abstract:

The abstract of this experience include the reaction of the

chemical, the data that we get and the result. The experience make to

get the understanding of the product when we combining different

chemicals (Sodium bicarbonate & Acetic acid) and also the influences of

the rockets appearance to the result. In this experience we are going to

make a rocket with a plastic bottle, and the fuel of rocket will be the gas

that produce by baking soda and vinegar. After the pre-job is done, we

need to make the rocket hit the target (3 diameter target) that is 20

meters far from the starting point. The equation below will be how baking

and vinegar reaction to each other:

CH3COOH + NaHCO3 CH3COONa + H2O + CO2

When they react to each other, the reaction will generate a carbon

dioxide gas, which will form a force to push the rocket and makes it

launch. And for the result of this experiment, we fail every try in the

school and score nothing at the accuracy part. There is one thing I

confuse about, because we dont know why we success when we try the

rocket at our home, but after it come to the school, we cant even fly for

5 meters. So this is what we would like to discuss about next time.

Objective:

First is learning the reaction between of Baking soda and vinegar.

Second is the factor that influences the launch of rocket. Third is learn to

calculate the molar mass of materials.

Introduction:

Vinegar is acetic acid (CH COOH) and water. Acetic acid is made
3

of 2 carbon atoms, 4 hydrogen atoms, and 2 oxygen atoms. Baking soda

is sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO ). Sodium bicarbonate is made of 1

3

sodium ion, 1 hydrogen atom, 1 carbon atom, and 3 oxygen atoms.

When we combine vinegar and baking soda, it will form sodium acetate,

water and carbon dioxide. Vinegar is an acid substance, which can

corrode carbonate substance such as baking soda, limestone to form

carbon dioxide gas. In this experiment, we use carbon dioxide in this

reaction to use the rocket up and form the high pressure in the bottle.

We decide to use a big cola bottle as the rocket, and decorate with

the nose, but not wings, because the wings will stick on our launcher so

we choose to take it off. And we should change and redesign the

launcher again, but not just take off the fins. However, we need to use

the rocket we made and launch it in the school and try to hit the target

that is 20 meters far away from the starting point.

Materials:

Chemical Material:

Vinegar Baking Soda

Laboratory Apparatus:

Coca-Cola Duct Tape Future Board PVC Tubes

Laboratory Apparatus: (continued)

Cardboard Paper Cork-Wine Measuring Cup

Color Paint Spray Color Scissors

Weighting Scale for Bakery
Procedure:

1. Design our rocket with a proper shape and the launcher that can fit

with the rocket.

2. Built the rocket with the laboratory apparatus above, which you

may need to do two of it to prevent some kind of accident.

3. Built your launcher with PVC pipe and boards for the base, and

you can do the launcher which can change the angle, so you will

know what angle is most suitable for the experiment.

4. Weight the mass of your rocket.

5. Weight the chemical materials and put it into the rocket, and use

cork to close the bottle mouth.

6. Put your rocket into the launcher, and wait for the launch.

7. Repeat several times of step 5 and 6, then find out the best

amount of chemical that help your rocket to reach the target. And

dont forget to record the data.

8. Lastly, do your report.

Discussion:

Calculation:
 For the Vinegar (CH3COOH):

mol = g/Molar mass = 5/60.05 = 0.0083mol

100ml of CH COOH = 0.0083 mol

3

400ml will be 0.332mol and 350ml will be 0.291mol

For the Baking soda (NaHCO ): 3

mol = g/Molar mass = 26/84.01 = 0.309mol

For 35.83g of baking soda, it will be 0.426mol

And since we have less NaHCO3 that is required, NaHCO3 is the

limiting reagent for this reaction.

So how many of gas can we get from these materials?

And we all know one mole of acid reacts with one mole of soda to

produce one mole of CO2 gas according to the equation. Then the

mol of CO2 will equal to the mol of NaHCO3.

So 0.309 = g / 40.01 so CO2 = 12.36g

0.426 = g / 40.01 = 17.06 g

Error:

In the experiment, we try plenty times of launch in our house or in

the school, but the time we not success are much more than the time we

hit the target. And after many times of change the amount of chemical,

we found out that the reason why we cant hit the target or even not fly
are because of the we did not add enough of chemical, which make

there is no correct proportion of vinegar and baking soda to have a good

reaction. Moreover, we also notice that the size of rocket is a little too

big, and we only add 200ml of vinegar and 25 g baking soda in the

bottle, which cant form enough amount gas to push the rocket.

So we decide to add 400ml of vinegar and 35 g of baking soda,

which do push the rocket to a very far place but still not reach to 20

meter. Then we start to put some small rocks in the nose of the rocket,

so the bottle will not be too light, and it do help the situation. The most

important error that we miss is, we didnt make the wings. The wings are

needed since it uses to be air resistance.

Suggestion:
 1. It could succeed if the weather was not as windy as it was when

we did our experiment at school.

2. If we had more days to try our rocket at school and not just two

days, it wouldve had better results

3. Maybe changing the launcher and its angle wouldve made it reach

the target more accurately

4. Putting wings for the rocket to make it air resistance.

Result:

In this experiment, our rocket did not pass a distance of 20 meters

long. Somehow, we manage to launch at 6 meters long which is our best

performance in the data sheet. It required 26 grams of baking soda and

400 ml of vinegar to launch at 6 meters.

Conclusion:

The rocket did not reach the target because of

human error and environment error. The human errors
are there are not enough time for one person doing all of
the work, there isnt enough baking soda and vinegar
that make the rocket does not fly and lastly is the design
that we did. We did not attach the wings to make it wind
resistance. Environment error is sometimes there are
wind that blew our rocket far far away and the wind blew
too strong that make the rocket fly backward.

References:

California Science. "Stoichiometry: Baking Soda and Vinegar

Reactions." N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Work Log
Li Huang Jung (Kelly)
Alinnan Thiptanakit (Jinny)
Rokaya Abdulaal (Kaya)
Prame Ruangkana (Tuang)
Objective, Materials,
Background/Introduction,
Discussion Concept, Design for
Rocket
Discussion of Design for launcher,
Conclusion, Recommendation,
Design of the Report
Half of the conclusion, references
References