jperezcannonIBEC5: Building OUR Own Cannon

Construct combustion cannons that will be expected to launch an object. Use pressure, temperature, and volume to influence in your design.

the pressure will be caused by a combustion reaction of:
C₂H₅OH+3O₂ à 2CO₂+3H₂0

In order to have the perfect cannon, we needed to have a list of qualities of our cannon.

1) Sturdy

2) Is able to fire

3) Make sure it does not melt

4) Air tight

5) The chances of misfiring will be less probable.

In order to have these qualities we made sure to apply the following structure to our cannon:

1) Suction from the ball to the barrel

2) Taped good and appropriately

3) Find the appropriate balance and angle for the cannon

Materials:

18 inch piece of Tape
2 Tennis ball canisters
Scissors
Ruler
Compass
Protractor
Permanent marker

Procedure

· Sketched out multiple designs of the cannon but soon decided on the final design that we would minimize the volume and will result in a greater pressure according to Gay-Lussac’s Law.
· Took pictures of our materials in order for us to put it on our blogs.
· Outlined the final design with sharpie pen and took pictures of the final and previous designs.
· Took the proper measurements of the cannon and to get the proper angle that the cannon will be at.
· Made marks with the sharpie pen and ruler on one canister, used it to draw a circle around the canister at the 4.5 inches. This will be attached to the 4.0 inch canister
· The next canister we cut will be at 4.0 inches.
· Afterwards we try to make the hole in the bottom of the 4.5 inch canister, in order to do this we used pens, thumbtacks, compass (Which we broke the tip off of), and scissors. We do this in order to hopefully achieve a greater pressure.
· It took us about ten minutes to get a hole the size of a tack. When one of our male colleagues did it in ten seconds it was the size of a pencil eraser.
· After we have successfully poked the hole in the bottom of the 4.5 inch canister we inserted it into the 4.0 inch canister and we moved it to a 27 degree angle. This will be the whole barrel.
· When we trace the 27 degree angle onto the sheet of paper we took the remainder from the 4.5 inch canister and traces the dip in it before cutting it. This will be our base for our cannon.

Cannon design

To build our perfect cannon, we used the following formula to determine an appropriate angle for our cannon.

· y = ax²+bx+c

· x = vt(cos)Ө

o x = distance

o v = velocity

o t = time the ball was in the air

o (cos) = co-sign

o Ө = angle of the cannon

We began by plugging in a 25° degree angle, with a time of five seconds in the air, and a velocity of 1feet/second. We plugged those numbers into our formula which resulted in a distance of13.12 feet. We then decided to experiment with an angle of 28° degrees, using the same time and the same velocity. The outcome of the distance was 14.48 feet. We finally determined to use a 27° degree angle which resulted in 14.59 feet. We decided to use this angle because it gave us the longest distance.

Materials