| In class this week, Andrew decided to include all of us in a class lab. The first part to our lab, we learned a bit about the periodic table. Our main goal was to learn how to read a periodic table and how to build a rocket engine. With explosions or combustion, oxygen atoms are involved. This is what happens when you combine elements. On a periodic table, you can see how the column shows how many electrons are in the outer shell. You can see the atomic mass, how many electrons, protons, and neutrons there are, and the number. We also learned about reactions, and related them to rockets. Our rockets contained 65% Nitrate and 35% sorbitol sugar. Andrew melted down the mixture, and poured it into little pcp pipe sections. He then topped it off with a bit of concrete, so that when it dries you could drill a hole into it. He also poured black powder into them as we were getting our rockets ready to launch. He put a string in them so that the fire would slowly work its way up to the fuel. The rockets didn't fly in the air or anything, but they did produce a really loud psssst noise and let out a lot of smoke. It was really cool to watch. I was really interested in this rocket lab. It made me wish that I was doing the rocket project. I learned a lot about how simple rockets work, and I'd like to actually make one and launch one someday in this class. |
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close the mass of water was to the volume. For example, the easiest and most accurate measurement tool to see this was the Volumetric flask. For the Volume, we used the 50 mark to do this experiment. From the mass of water, we got 49.39. The Percent Error was 0.61. This shows how close you were to measuring, and how far away you are from the actual value. The R2 value of the Volumetric flask, was the one I thought was the easiest to see. As it was the most accurate. The R2 value represents the closest measurement to the next number. For the volumetric flask, we got R2 = 0.9999995, and is very close to the next number. Again, according to the data we found, we realized that the volumetric flask is the best and most accurate measurement tool. In my opinion, I did very good in this lab. I used tools that I've never used before, and learned that every tool has a different measurement. I calculated a whole different type of math, and I learned a lot in this lab. I feel confident in using measurement tools, and this collaboration with people I've never worked before with went great. I can't wait to do the other labs.
In reality, we never expected this to work. In the end we realized that there is a specific ratio for it to work the way we want it to. We found that for it to work, the ratio should be 1:3. 1 cup of water, for every 3 cups of sugar. It also depends that you heat the water to where there is steam coming off of the water, so that when the sugar is poured in, there's plenty of opportunity for it to be covered after you pour it in the cup. When the cup is covered, it allows the evaporation to happen. The water evaporates enough for the sugar molecules to latch on to each other and form into sugar squares. Another important part for the rock candy to form, is to wet the string or stick and cover it in sugar, so that the new coming sugar crystals can latch on and grow onto existing sugar. From our observation, the top of the rock candy seems to be growing like squares, and just seem to connect to each other. It's so cool to see tiny little grains of sugar turn into squares of sugar. I really benefited from this project because I got to see something form that I didn't know how formed.
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HelloThis is strictly a blog that I can keep everyone updated on my progress and projects in this semester's chemistry class. |