How to make a Tea Bag Rocket

HOW TO MAKE A TEA BAG ROCKET

TUGAS

Untuk memenuhi tugas bidang studi Bahasa Inggris oleh Hayat Sholihin, M.Sc. Ph.D.

Oleh

VANNI HADIANI     1201973

PROGRAM STUDI PENDIDIKAN KIMIA

JURUSAN PENDIDIKAN KIMIA

FAKULTAS PENDIDIKAN MATEMATIKA DAN ILMU PENGETAHUAN ALAM

UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA

BANDUNG

2012

A.    Introduction

To demonstrate the applications of jet, learn about density of air and how it is affected by change in temperature.

The Tea Bag Rocket is really an adaptation of a classic science demonstration called the Ditto Paper Rocket. If you're old enough to have experienced Ditto paper, you'll recall the bluish-purple ink and that unforgettable smell of freshly printed copies. Each piece of Ditto paper had a sheet of tissue paper that separated the two-part form, and it was this discarded piece of paper that teachers and kids used to make Ditto paper "rockets." Since Ditto paper is a thing of the past, science enthusiasts have found a simple replacement - a tea bag.

There is also a real world connection with this experiment. While vehicles like NASA rockets or harrier jets (these are really amazing, look them up) use propulsion to achieve a vertical "liftoff," hot air balloons use a similar method to your rocket that you created with a bag of tea. Hot air balloons use a burner to heat the inside of the balloon, creating the same air density change that you made with your rocket. However, there is no mass change like when your paper turned to ash. Instead, the air inside the balloon is heated much hotter than the air outside, creating an envelope of air much less dense than the air outside. As a result, the balloon lifts off the ground.

B.    Materials

·    Teabag

·    Non-flammable plate

·    Scissors

·    Lighter or match

C.    Steps

1.    Open the tea bag wrapper and unfold the tea bag.
Comment: This picture shows the staple, label and string removed from the teabag.

2.    Cut off both ends and empty out the tea grains.
Comment: This picture shows tea bag cut by scissors.

3.    Use your finger to turn the teabag into a cylinder.
Comment: This picture shows empty tea bag into a tubular shape by finger.

4.    Stand the cylinder on one of its end on a plate on a flat surface.
Comment: This picture shows the tube stood up on a plate

5.    Use a lighter or match to ignite the top of the tea bag cylinder.
Comment: This picture shows the top of tea bag burned by match or lighter.

6.    Wait a few seconds.
7.    Watch the rocket fly into the air!
Comment: This picture shows the tea bag flown into the air.

D.     Conclusion

There are three principles acting on the cylinder you've made from the bag of tea that make this experiment work.

The first principle involves the density of the air within the cylinder as it compares to the air on the outside of the cylinder. As the flame burns down the bag of tea, it heats the air that is contained within the cylinder. The heat excites individual air molecules and causes them to move more quickly and spread out within the cylinder. The excited air molecules inside the cylinder are farther apart than those on the outside of the cylinder, making the air inside the cylinder less dense than the air outside the cylinder. This warmer, less dense air rises above the cooler, more dense air.

This experiment also demonstrates the principle of convection currents. As we just explained, the burning bag of tea creates hot, less dense air. This creates a thermal, or convection, current. The space created by the less dense air inside the cylinder allows the dense air outside to push upwards from the bottom. That movement or current of air is referred to as a convection current.

But that isn't enough to create the rocket that you saw at the end of the experiment. As the bag of tea burns, it turns into both ash and smoke. The smoke lifts away and dissipates into the air, leaving just a delicate ash frame. Since the ash is so lightweight, the force of the rising hot air is strong enough to lift the ash into the air.

The flame created by burning the teabag heated the air inside the teabag cylinder. When the air was heated energy was transferred to individual pieces of air called air molecules. The air molecules moved around more quickly and spread out to take up more space. This means that the air molecules were further apart from each other and therefore the air was less dense. The warmer, less dense air rose above the cooler, denser air.

When the teabag burned, the teabag turned into ash and smoke. The smoke lifted away and all that was left was the ash. Ash is light, so it doesn’t require much force to lift it. The rising of the less dense (heated) air inside the teabag had enough force to lift the ash of the teabag.

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