Chemistry Component

This was a chemistry project, so there's a lot of components involved in this experiment that requires some understanding in chemistry.
What we're basically doing in this project is creating our own cannons our of limited material, and launching them the farthest it could go. The gas we are going to use in this experiment is ethanol,  and ethanol reacting with Oxygen results in combustion which will cause the pressure that will fire the cannon.

Balanced Chemical Equation ↓

C₂H₅OH + 3O₂ → 2CO₂ + 3H₂O

The gas laws played a big part in this project.

For example, we made sure to make a small gas chamber instead of a big one, because by Boyle's Law, the volume of the gas is inversely proportional to its pressure. So we estimated that the smaller the chamber is, the more force it'll impose. Not only that, but by Charle's Law, volume and temperature are directly proportional. So, the larger the volume, the higher the temperature and if the temperature rises, so will the pressure. The key point in this part was that the chamber cannot be so big that the pressure won't build, but not so small that the temperature will make a significant amount of difference.

I think I have failed to mention this before, but the launch of the cannon isn't goint to be until Spring. The justification behind this also involves the gas law. This involves Gay-Lussac's Law (Do not make fun of the poor man's name (; ). Gay-Lussac's Law states that the pressure and temperature are directly proportional. The problem this imposes is that if the temperature is cold outside like it is now, the pressure won't build up as well as it should and the launch will end up in a failure. Instead of risking our precious projects having no results other than disintegrating, Mr. Kelly decided to launch in the Spring when it's warm, and our cannons can show its true effect.


So, because the launch isn't happening until then we don't have a reflection yet as to what we will change in the future. The one I definitely have in mind, is not the cannon's composition but the fact that we only had about four hours total to come up with an idea and make the cannon. Since seminar is gone now and my teammates have completely different schedules than I do, it was difficult to come together and establish the best idea possible. Next time, I think we should have more time so that we can come up with the very best!