Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,

Our 5th grader is doing the Rocketology: Baking Soda and Vinegar = blast off project. We followed the procedure to the T, the film canisters go approximately the same height (more than 20ft high) no matter what ratios we use.

Has anyone had a similar issue? We can't measure the height for our records. Any suggestions/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks much!

Hi there,

It sounds like all of your rockets are going so high that you won't be able to see a difference between the different ratios.

I would suggest scaling the whole thing down, as far as how much baking soda and vinegar you are using, so that you achieve measurable heights, and then the difference between the ratios should become more obvious.

For example, if you are currently using a total of 5 tsp of vinegar, cut this back to maybe 2 tsp and then vary the amount as stated in the procedure. My suspicion is that the different ratios will have more of a noticeable effect if all of the rockets aren't going so high.

Another thing you could try is diluting the vinegar to make it not as strong. Diluting the vinegar would also lead to smaller more measurable heights.

I hope this helps!

Erin