A small rocketry-related anecdote about Bring Your Child to Work Day

Felt like recounting this small and insignificant but slightly amusing anecdote.

Bring Your Child to Work Day was a couple of weeks ago. As has become tradition, we try to create a nice day of fun and educational activities at my workplace. Let me emphasize that all the people who work on it are wonderful, and it's usually a great success, including this year.

This year, the "big activity" was a balloon-powered Lego car contest. Each kid (or team) builds a small Lego car, to be powered by a single inflated latex ballon. The car the travelled the farthest on our lunchroom floor would be the winner. I assisted the kids with this activity.

After the kids had built their cars, we headed for the lunch room, where some other folks had set up the "test track". Just behind the starting line, a 6' table was lying on its side, acting as sort of a wall. It seemed to be in the way and I couldn't figure out why it was there, so I asked. Answer I got: "you need something for the air to push against so the cars can go." I said "yeah, that's not how it works", but absolutely no one else jumped in to support me so the contest went on with the useless table in place.

And so, 50 years after the moon landing, folks still have no clue how a rocket motor works.

Should have brought in a bag of Fig Newtons for a snack.

That was a prime time for an example of "Well... Let me try it, my way. And If the car doesn't move, I'll give everyone here $5.00, if it does, you all give me $5 bucks."

Reminds me of a too-long discussion on TRF long ago, when someone claimed a hollow steel launch rod was stiffer than a solid steel launch rod (of the same diameter and material). And way too many agreed with that. And more recently, that certain chute shapes "drift less in wind" than other chute shapes (presuming the exact same descent rate/duration, rather than some coming down faster than others).

georgegassaway said:

Reminds me of a too-long discussion on TRF long ago, when someone claimed a hollow steel launch rod was stiffer than a solid steel launch rod (of the same diameter and material). And way too many agreed with that. And more recently, that certain chute shapes "drift less in wind" than other chute shapes (presuming the exact same descent rate/duration, rather than some coming down faster than others).

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That last one is a bit counterintuitive if you haven't spent much time at the corner of scalar and vector.

It still -feels- like the cross-section should matter

I know that is a real common mistake. I always make the TARC teams that I mentor tell me what makes the rocket fly. It usually takes a few laps, but I always make sure that they understand Newton's third law of motion before we proceed. If it had to have something to 'push against', how could it possibly work in the vacuum of space?

Jim

Jim Hinton said:

I know that is a real common mistake. I always make the TARC teams that I mentor tell me what makes the rocket fly. It usually takes a few laps, but I always make sure that they understand Newton's third law of motion before we proceed. If it had to have something to 'push against', how could it possibly work in the vacuum of space?

Jim

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I'm thinking that this is an overdue experiment aboard (or just outside of) the ISS.

I suppose you could show them a video of the drop-off of an X-15 at altitude. No table required.

That one should have been easy to solve though. Just grab a car and let it go somewhere other than near the table. When it races away from you then you've shown the table isn't necessary.

K'Tesh said:

That was a prime time for an example of "Well... Let me try it, my way. And If the car doesn't move, I'll give everyone here $5.00, if it does, you all give me $5 bucks."

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Mushtang said:

That one should have been easy to solve though. Just grab a car and let it go somewhere other than near the table. When it races away from you then you've shown the table isn't necessary.

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You know how this ends? They say it was pushing on the air .

OverTheTop said:

You know how this ends? They say it was pushing on the air .

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Actually, it ended as described, with no further discussion and the table in place. This activity was not about teaching the kids Newton's third law, it was about building Lego cars. When there are 15 antsy kids milling around waiting for their turn to test their cars, that is *not* the time to stop everything for a lecture.

I just found the whole thing a little disheartening but also amusing.

In the meantime, it turned out that there were two key to making the car go furthest

1. Give it a large enough wheelbase to it would not fall over, or want to turn
2. Keep the balloon from dragging on the floor in front to slow down and/or turn the car.

Only one contestant managed to nail both of these (not necessary by intention, but no matter), and it went about twice as far as the second-place finisher. It was actually a really good activity.

This is the problem with widely-accepted "common sense" versus theory, experimentation, and evidence.

This thread lead to this post:

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/robert-goddard-and-rockets-cant-work-in-space.152596/


Tony

K'Tesh said:

I'm thinking that this is an overdue experiment aboard (or just outside of) the ISS.

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OverTheTop said:

You know how this ends? They say it was pushing on the air .

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Thus my suggestion of doing an experiment outside of the ISS... Make sure that the thing is pointed towards earth, made of something like cardstock with a balloon, and a straw. Maybe even write a "In case this is found..." message on it. Astronaut goes outside, pinches the neck of the balloon, cuts the knot, points it towards the planet and releases it... Lets see what happens then.

OR

Do the experiment inside one of those huge vacuum chambers that NASA has.

You should have suggested that your company should bid on building the space tables for NASA. That has to be a pretty lucrative contract.

My dad was a physics professor, he used to stand on a skateboard and discharge a fire extinguisher to demonstrate the reaction force in class. Made a big mess, but kept the kids awake.

GlenP said:

My dad was a physics professor, he used to stand on a skateboard and discharge a fire extinguisher to demonstrate the reaction force in class. Made a big mess, but kept the kids awake.

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That reminds me of my German professor who came into classroom with a ladder over his shoulder and at every turn threatened to hit someone in the head with the end of the ladder. We were expected to should "watch out", "look out", "be careful", and those sorts of things, in German naturally, to protect ourselves. I've forgotten a lot of German but "Forsicht!" and "Pas Auf!" stick in my head 35 years later.

neil_w said:

As has become tradition, we try to create a nice day of fun and educational activities at my workplace...

...This year, the "big activity" was a balloon-powered Lego car contest.

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Do Legos, balloons, and toy cars serve a purpose in your business? I am guessing they do not.

This is how the event has been bastardized. Back in the day, kids (of proper age) would shadow their parent, see actual business practices, and get a feel for careers. Now, Take Your Kid to Work Day has turned into a damn carnival where the little brats are constantly entertained. My workplace has face painting and bean bag toss, for God sakes. And, why April? How about during summer vacation?

Flame on...

Well, I can't let my kids see or hear almost anything I actually work on due to NDAs, so.... gotta' have something to do for the few hours a year they're allowed inside the office.

Nerf wars in the big conference room, btw.

Buckeye said:

Do Legos, balloons, and toy cars serve a purpose in your business? I am guessing they do not.

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If that was all we did the whole day you might have a point.

This is how the event has been bastardized. Back in the day, kids (of proper age) would shadow their parent, see actual business practices, and get a feel for careers.

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Shadowing someone with a desk job (such as myself and most folks at my company location) is more likely to put a kid into a coma than teach them anything useful about the career. Trying to keep a group of kids of widely varied age gainfully engaged and learning for several hours is incredibly difficult. I've worked on this event multiple years in the past, and it was an insane amount of work for the benefit of about 15 kids. We did some great activities that managed to be fun and also connected to the work our company does, mixed in with some stuff that was just for fun.

But so much work.

I can say with certainty: if we had no organized activities, and each kid just hung out with their parent for the day, then two things would happen:
1) fewer kids would come (by far)
2) the kids that did come would be bored out of their skulls and probably just playing amongst themselves before long.

So, take your pick.