Designing Mistakes and (New) Procedure

In hindsight, cutting the tennis ball can in half to increase the pressure wasn't such a good idea because oxygen would, by far, be the limiting reagent in the reaction. To improvise for this cut, we changed our original plans to make it so that the halved can would be the base of the cannon. This will increase the distance traveled by the nerf ball because it will now be launched four inches higher than before.

We attempted to use Boyle's Law in order to maximize the launch distance, but we forgot that there might not be enough oxygen in the container for the ethanol to properly ignite. Luckily, our mistake was caught and we were able to improvise in time to finish building the cannon.

In addition, we thought that we could use scissors in the actual design and we planned to use them as a prop to prevent the cannon from falling forward. Unfortunately, we weren't supposed to, and were told to remove the scissors after we were done building.

Just for fun, we added the tennis ball lids in the designs as "wheels". They serve no purpose in the actual launching, but they make it easier to distinguish the can as a cannon.

Now all we have to do is launch and see if our work has paid off.



This is a picture of the remake of our cannon



As you can see above, the halved tennis ball can became our base that will had more height to our cannon.

1. Obtain materials (tape, scissors, tennis ball can, lids, protractor, and writing utensils)

2. Cut one of the tennis ball cans in half with the scissors. Be sure that the cut is even so as not to create an oblique angle.

3. Place the second tennis ball can with no cuts in the halved one at a forty-five degree angle, so as to add height (and therefore distance) to the nerf ball's launch.

4. Tape the tennis ball cans together firmly.

*We wanted to make sure that we had enough oxygen in the reaction in order to allow for the full use of the ethanol. Because of this, we didn't cut the second tennis ball can just to be on the safe side.