Earlier this month, our class was assigned an assignment in which we would use trigonometry to find a measurement that we did not know. It became increasingly clear to us what would be a very good application of this. We decided to find out how high a rocket flew using trigonometry! The launch pad would, of course, have a 90 degree flight vertically. We would go away from the launchpad a set measurement, and have someone watch with a device to measure the angle of the rocket when it reaches the peak of its flight pattern. From here, we have three measurements of this triangle: the base, and two angles.
This would allow us to perform basic trigonometry to solve the rest of the problem! Via basic math, we could add the two angles we know and proceed to subtract them from 180. This would give us the top angle’s measurement. From here, using sine and cosine, we could use this to allow us to find out the length of the hypotenuse and opposite side of the triangle. In the end, if we were to get the “opposite” side, this would allow us to find out how high the rocket flew! In reality, things happened a lot differently. We couldn't actually measure the angle of the rocket, as the rocket flew so fast it was simply unable to be tracked. We instead made bottle rockets. After launching three, and using the math shown to the right, the average height was 65.41 feet high. |