ASTRONOMY CLUB IS OUT OF THIS WORLD

On Thursday 25th April members of the Misbourne astronomy club enjoyed a lunch time of launching water rockets into the Great Missenden skyline.

Water rockets use a pump to compress air into a bottle that is a quarter filled with water, resulting in an immense air pressure building above the water’s surface. When the pressure becomes great enough, the plug is released from the bottle and water sprays out, propelling the bottle 20- 40 metres into the atmosphere.

The three astronomy club leaders, year twelve students Oli Clements, Arman Azam and Robert Horne organised a competition amongst the year seven pupils. In this the students were split into four groups who each had to select the volume of water in the bottle rocket. The winning group was the group who achieved the greatest height of projection. The pupils also had to take into consideration the angle and direction of trajectory, frictional forces and direction of wind. The winning group received a prize of astronaut ice-cream- Neapolitan flavoured!

The activity also enabled pupils to explore the world of space travel and the many factors that need to be accounted for when launching a satellite into space.

A member of the astronomy club spoke of the thrilling lunch hour:

“I really enjoyed launching the water rockets into space. My best lunchtime all year. I hope that we can do it again, or something like it.

I can’t wait for the trip this summer to the Science Museum. It’s going to be amazing!”

The leaders of astronomy club are currently in the process of organising a trip for the young brainy astronomers to the Science Museum, London in the summer term as a reward for their ongoing commitment to the club.

Oli Clements