THRUST STRUCTURES

Today I did a lab with my partners and we were working on thrust and seeing how launching a rocket compares to Newton's 3rd law. Our assignment was to build a structure out of craft sticks that was light enough to launch our "rocket" (a 1-liter soda bottle) a meter high, but strong enough to withstand the pressure of a 2 km bag of sand (from about 1 meter up) dropped on it and, to hold out for 3 tests. Our structure was basically a cube with only the edges made out of craft sticks and hot glue with extra sticks glued on top to hold the soda bottle.

How this relates to Newton's 3rd law:
Newton's 3rd law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
When the sandbag is dropped on one end of the "see-saw" the opposite reaction is force pushing off from the craft stick structure to launch the bottle over 1 meter high.

First test: The soda bottle launched off the meter stick
Second test: The soda bottle almost launched off the meter stick.
Third test: The soda bottle launched all the way off the meter stick (to about 1.3 meters)
Fourth test*: The soda bottle launched all the way off the meter stick


*we only tested a fourth time because the bottle never made it off the meter stick on the second one.