Video & transcription are below.
Video Transcription
Good afternoon, Saint Francis, how are we doing?
Hey, I’m, I normally charge $10 a finger for a high 5. I’m handing out $350.00 high fives today. There we go. All right, team.
Well, thank you all very, very much for having me here today and thank you, Mr Marinucci, for that kind intro.
So I’m Cran Middlecoat. It’s up here. It’s a bit like cranberry. You just don’t have to worry about the Berry. If you call me Berry, that’s all right. I’m not going to be the slightest bit upset. Now I have as the thing, right.
OK, so I as as Mr Marinucci said, I’ve been around aeroplanes all my life. I absolutely love flying that little boy. That’s me a few weeks ago now, Try about 40 years ago and the first time I went riding for a flying an aeroplane and my dad was the Co Co-pilotpilot and I just knew that’s exactly what I wanted to do and then when an aeroplane flew over, I did, I noticed it.
So I got no idea what my what look my mum was going for with the long socks. What was it with little boys in the 1980s? Grown Ups were, you know, boys wore long socks. Must have just been one of those things.
So that’s my son, that’s me when I learned to fly. My son was 15 and that’s my dad and that’s my granddad, so I can show you there. We all absolutely love flying aeroplanes.
So I’ve been fortunate enough to fly three of those big jet planes and about 35 odd different other aeroplanes, helicopters, gliders, they’re gonna fly a little war bird. So yeah, I absolutely love flying.
OK, so we’re gonna do some flying STEM today. So we’re gonna talk. We know STEM, we do STEM, don’t we? Yeah, yeah. Science, technology, engineering, maths. So we’re gonna do some rocket science today.
So what is a rocket? Alright, when you when you hear that word rocket, what adjectives, what descriptive words come to mind?
When you hear that word rocket, what do you think mate? Absolutely, you absolutely have to have a rocket to fly to space. Aeroplanes don’t work in space. Aeroplanes can only work where there is air, where there’s an atmosphere and there’s no atmosphere in space.
Any other adjectives you can think of. What do you think? Fast. Yeah, fast. So you’ve got to go really, really fast to get into space. They’re loud up the back.
But think about these adjectives, these things that come to mind when you hear that word rocket.
So a rocket is just a vehicle. It has everything it needs to create a pushing force in one direction called thrust, which then propels the rocket in the other direction. So a there’s that pushing force called thrust. Push forces always go away from you, which then propels the rocket in the other direction.
A balloon is in fact a very simple example of a rocket. It’s got everything it needs to create that push in one direction, which then propels the balloon all around the room. Very unstable and not very powerful, but it is the definition of a rocket.
So who do we think invented the rocket? I’ll give you a hint. It was a long time ago. Before grand and granddad’s, grand and granddad’s grand and granddad’s, Nana’s, Nana’s great granddad’s grandma. More than 1000 years ago. Who invented the rocket? The people from a particular country. So I need some country names, please. What do you think? This is before the United States was even the United States. That’s how long ago This country I’m thinking of starts with a “C”. That ch sound. What do you think, mate? Well done. It was the ancient Chinese people.
The ancient Chinese people had a fantastic invention called gunpowder. They discovered gunpowder by mistake while they were trying to make gold. Make gold, or the elixir of life, depending on whose story you listen to. By accident, they made gunpowder. Now, what’s something that grows in China? An enormous species of grass that grows in China. What do you think? Yeah, I’m thinking of this species of grass. Pandas like to eat it. Bamboo.
Now, is bamboo solid like a tree trunk, or is it hollow like a pipe? It’s hollow like a pipe. So the ancient Chinese people found out that bamboo made really good rocket motor casings. They packed it full of that gunpowder invention, put on a clay nozzle, and they had the ancient Chinese rocket motors all right. But we didn’t have modern rockets to over 1000 years, 1000 years after that.
That’s when we started to have things like Project Apollo, the moon shot, powered by the big bad Saturn five. And until recently when Elon Musk launched his Starship, that was the most powerful rocket that has ever flown. So the Saturn 5 was, and like I said, till recently, the tallest, heaviest, loudest and the most powerful rocket that was ever built.
Wait, if you can try to imagine 1650 family sized cars all stacked on top of one another, 3000 metric tonnes of power. We all know that ship Titanic. Try to imagine 3478 Titanics. That’s pretty nuts. Noise, It was so loud at lift off they could detect the launch on an earthquake sensor 1600 kilometres away. That’s like launching here in Brisbane. An earthquake sensor in Adelaide could detect the launch just from the noise it made.
Now we all know that landmark Dreamworld Tower, Well, when the Saturn 5 was sitting on its launchpad, the Dreamworld Tower would come up to about there. It was taller than the Dreamworld Tower when it was sitting on its launchpad. Absolutely.
Now, who’s got a pool at home? I want you to imagine we have now completely emptied your pool. It is absolutely bone, bone dry. Instead of being full of water, we’re fill it full of rocket fuel. King Kong and Godzilla rock up to your place. They pick up that your pool and empty every single last drop of that rocket swimming pool load of rocket fuel into the Saturn 5. How long do you think it would take to use all of that swimming pool load of fuel every single last drop? Who’s who’s got some ideas? What do you think?
One second.
What do we think there mate?
A few minutes.
What do you think?
A couple of hours.
All right, What do you think?
A day, like 2 days.
All right, try 3 seconds. 3 seconds and your swimming pool load off fuel is gone. That rocket burnt 15 tonne of fuel a second. Your average backyard size pool has 45 tonne. What’s 45 / 15, 3 seconds And your entire swimming pool load of fuel has gone.
Now you got a space, you got to have a spacesuit, right? Yeah. I like old mate in the middle. That’s he looks like like a lighthouse with lakes. You know, an old mate in the right. He he just needs his horse and his jousting stick and his bow and arrow. He looks like a knight from mediaeval times. NASA came along and said, Oh, my gosh, come on, get with the programme. They’re hard. They’re heavy. If he’s got to get out of the capsule on the ground in a hurry, he’s wearing a pickle barrel. Oh, come on.
They said you have to make it out of something that was soft, light and flexible. OK, so think of those three material properties. Soft, light and flexible. The company that made that spacesuit that went to the moon that Neil Armstrong wore. What do you think they made before spacesuits? Think of that thing. Soft, light, flexible.
What do you think, mate?
It’s a good idea because you need oxygen to breathe, don’t you?
That’s a good suggestion.
Thinking soft, light, flexible, though.
What do you think?
They made hamburgers.
No tissues?
No.
What do you think?
Think of something that’s soft.
A pillow.
They weren’t making pillows.
What do you think?
Blankets.
You’ve got to stay warm in space. Gets very hot and it gets very cold in space. What do you think, mate?
Yeah. They need oxygen tanks.
What? OK, What do you think, mate?
Rubber.
You can get a very soft, light, flexible rubber.
OK, they’re good.
What do you think, mate?
Parachutes.
Yeah, Well, they that’s soft, light and flexible.
They didn’t make parachutes, but they were all good suggestions.
The company that made that spacesuit that went to the moon before spacesuits, they made ladies underwear. How nuts is that? Seriously. OK, as crazy as that sounds, what did NASA say? They had to make a space suit out of something. That was what? Soft, light and flexible your underwear? It’s made of things that are soft, light, and flexible. OK, How crazy was that?
OK, so now we’re going to talk a little bit about sustainability. So sustainability is very important. So for something to be sustainable, OK, it has to be good for the environment, it has to be good for the community, and it can’t cost too much money. Those are the 3 criteria. For something to be sustainable, it has to meet all those criteria.
So space junk, seriously a big, big problem, because what happens is one piece of space junk smashes into another space junk to make more space junk, which smashes into more space junk to make. Maybe it’s called the Kessler syndrome. It’s really bad. And so we, it’s probably going to be someone from your generation who figures out how to fix space junk. So space junk, it’s definitely not good for the community, definitely not good for the environment, and it could cost an awful lot of money. So space junk is definitely unsustainable. We’ve got to fix it.
OK, Now, when we first started flying rockets, the quickest way was to get them up there and they would go in stages. The parts would then separate and fall back to Earth. Only they just dumped them in the ocean. They fell into the ocean and they left them there. OK? So that was what they wanted to do.
So The thing is, the space race was happening between Russia and America, and people were really, really excited about it. So it was kind of good for the community. People couldn’t wait to see whether John Glenn was in orbit or whether they’re going to launch Apollo 11. However, was it good for the environment? No, just dropping pieces of heavy metals and that sort of thing into the Atlantic Ocean. Definitely not good for the environment and leaving of air cost and it cost 3 billion, That’s with a “B”, 3 billion dollars to go to the moon. So that was definitely sustainable or unsustainable. Unsustainable. All right.
Then came along the space shuttle. It took off like a rocket, landed like an aeroplane and the boosters on the side, they’d come back down under parachute and a boat would go to collect them. They’d service them, refuelled them, and they could be used again. OK. The only part that couldn’t be used was that big, yeah, orange fuel tank and it burnt up in the atmosphere. They didn’t dump that in the ocean. It was burnt up.
So we now have Google Maps. Thanks to that, that vehicle, they got the satellites up for Google Maps, so we’re happy it didn’t dump anything in the ocean. So the environment, big tick..
OK, But they found that it costs so much money to keep that vehicle safe for astronauts. It was cheaper. It was actually cheaper to throw them away. Billions and billions of dollars. So was that sustainable or unsustainable? Definitely unsustainable. We’re getting better, We’re failing better, we’re getting better, but it’s definitely still unsustainable. OK.
Then our mate Elon came along Elon Musk with his Falcon. Those things are really cool because they take off and then they come back and they land.
They can be refuelled, and serviced, and they’ve been used to take up another payload into orbit, but they land back where they took off from. So just hang on to your questions, please.
So pretty soon we’re going to have Starlink, so we could be on a cruise in the middle of the Pacific and have high speed Internet. So the community, we’re happy. Is he dumping anything, anything into the ocean? No, he’s also reusing them. Environment tick. And because he’s reusing them, do you think it’s costing as much money as the other options? No, it’s not. So he’s saving money. So is Elon Musk’s SpaceX sustainable or unsustainable? Definitely sustainable. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
OK, so now we’re going to talk a little bit about forces with rockets, OK, There are lots of things that happen with forces. We’ve got contact forces, we’ve got non contact forces. We’ve got balanced and unbalanced forces. We have opposing forces. And there’s another one we’re going to talk about. And we also have, yeah, we have opposing forces. So contact and non contact forces. So our contact forces, what is the thing about contact forces? The objects must be what? For a contact force to work, the objects must be what they must be. That’s right. They must be in contact. They must be touching. OK, so contact forces only work when the objects are touching. OK, So that force you feel when you’re sitting down, pushing up is the normal force or the white force springs. They only work when they are touching. You’ve got tension. You can play tug of war. I’ve got with I’m right in the middle here. We’re playing tug of war. We’re going, we’re putting on a really good show, but we’re not getting anywhere because we’re not connected. Tension is a contact force.
Then we have air resistance. That’s my favourite contact force because it’s invisible. Like when you’re riding your bike or your scooter or something, you can feel the air touching your face. So the air is definitely touching you, isn’t it? So air resistance is a contact force and then we have friction. So everyone rub your hands together really, really hard. What do we feel? We feel warmth because of friction. Now does it work if you do this? No, that doesn’t work because friction is a contact force. We have to have our hands touching for the friction to work. Now non contact forces are different, alright? They don’t have to be touching.
So there’s Isaac Newton and the story goes and an apple fell on his head and he thought, hey cool, sweet, I’m going to call that gravity. So gravity is definitely a non contact force. It doesn’t have to be touching. The tiny little force that holds the electrons around the nucleus of an atom that’s they’re not touching. That is a non contact force.
And then we have magnetism. Magnetism is my favourite non contact force. So what you need to do is when you’re going to a really swish party like your auntie, your uncle’s wedding or something like that, what you’ve got to do is get your folks to take you to Bunnings and you get a really powerful magnet. All right, this is really cool. This is how what you do is try to sit beside someone you don’t know. Then when dinner’s being served and yeah, it was a beautiful day, wasn’t it? Yeah. Get your magnet and go under the table. And then when they go to pick up their fork, you move it right? And they’re looking at that saying, huh? Then then they go to pick it and you move it back. Oh, man, They start to freak out. Hey, so I think what crazy magic’s going on here? There’s no magic. It’s science. Because magnetism is a non contact force. It works. The magnet’s not touching the the cutlery, the fork, but it works as it’s non contact. It does have to be a powerful magnet. It won’t work with a little fridge magnet. You have to have a powerful magnet. Oh, that’s so much fun when you do that though.
OK, and how many of you girls have got cheeky brothers have gone and got a balloon and gone and moved your hair around using the balloon static electricity? All right, all right, that only that works. Does the balloon actually touch your hair? It can do if it’s close, but it doesn’t have to. That’s because static electricity is a non contact force.
OK, so when the forces are balanced, all right, they’re not moving. So my rocket here on the launchpad ready to fly. Is it balanced or unbalanced right now? Is it moving? Is it accelerating? No. So it is balanced. It is definitely a it’s have a balance force. OK, I’m moving a stage and as I’m walking, am I balanced or unbalanced? I’m unbalanced because I’m moving. OK, the car that accelerating from the lights, it’s unbalanced. So in a balanced force, you have gravity pulling down, and you’ve got the launchpad with the normal force, pushing back.
Now you can make to make something move, you have to make the forces unbalanced. You have to make at least one of the forces stronger than the other one. So when the rocket is there, it’s got gravity pulling it down, it’s got thrust pushing it along, and the thrust to make a move is stronger. So the forces are balanced or unbalanced? Unbalanced to make it work. OK, and away it goes.
To make something move, the forces have to be unbalanced. OK, then you’ve got opposing forces, they’re forces trying to stop each other. You’ve got the go forces, and then you’ve got stopping forces trying to stop the go forces. So what we’ve got is when a rocket’s flying, we’ve got thrust pushing it along, we’ve got gravity pulling it down, and we also have air resistance slowing it down. So friction is the other one we talked about friction. Now withfriction the objects must be touching. So it is definitely a contact or a non contact force contact because the forces are definitely touching.
You want to know how powerful friction can get? When rockets, when spacecraft come into re-entry back into the atmosphere, they glow red hot just because of the air resistance creates so much friction, they glow red hot. There’s a picture of one of the Apollo space capsules. Look how badly burnt it is because of friction.
OK, so we’re going to do a science experiment. We are going to do fair testing. Who can explain to me what fair testing is? When there’s lots of variables, lots of things you can change, how many do you change at once? What do you think?
1 That is fair testing, only changing one thing at a time.
I’ve got 3 rockets up here, OK, They’re different colours. The colour doesn’t matter because they’re the same weight, the same design. They’re going to be launched at the same angle. We’re going to do fair testing, which is changing only one variable at a time. That one variable we’re going to change. So our constants, the rocket shape, the rocket size and the launch angle are all going to be the same. They’re our constants. Our fair testing variable is going to be the number of pumps we’re going to put into our rocket and we’re going to double our pumps. And I’m going to use my stopwatch up here to time the flights. We’re going to put in double the pumps and we’re going. Our hypothesis is that with double the pumps, we should get double the flight time. Does that sound fair enough? Double the pumps, double the flight time. That makes sense.
OK, So what will be what will we measure? We will measure the length of the flight time and measure will be our flight time. OK, there’s our constants, shape, size, and launch angle, and we’re going to be going for launch now.
I’m going to need a couple of helpers up here. All right, you have been really keen. Can you help me? Have you got any handwriting? That’s good. That’s good. You come. Give me a hand, please. Yeah, both of you can help. All right, so that’s all good, guys.
So do you know what the difference between science and mucking around is? What’s the difference between science and mucking around? There’s only one difference between science and mucking around. You write down what happens when you do science.
So who’s got any handwriting? All right, so you can do that. Sweet. Can you please go and get that green whiteboard? You hold up the whiteboard. You stand over there too, please. That will work. All right, I’ve got my stopwatch.
I’ve got my rockets. We’re going to launch them over there now. They’re going to land on you. But don’t worry, they’re all made of soft foam, OK? There’s nothing to be concerned about. And wherever they land, you need to hold it up because we’re going to compare where they land.
OK, we’re going to put in the first one. Can you write in here? We’re going to put in three pumps. I’ll make it nice and big so everyone can see it. Like a nice big three so everyone can see it. That’s better. Then we’re going to double it. The next one is going to be 6 pumps. So you write 6 in there and then we’re going to double that again to 12 pumps. We’re getting putting in double of pumps. Our hypothesis is we will get double the flight time. That sound fair enough. OK, here we go.
So I might bring these over here so I can use the mic stand as well. So fair testing when you’re doing lots of, when there’s lots of variables, how many do you change at once? What is fair testing? You change only one. All right, So our angle’s going to be the same. So I’m going to get my mic stand here, pop that in there. So our first flight, we’re going to put in three pumps. OK, 123, are we ready? All right, so I’ve got to reset that. All right, 321 launch.
OK, leave it there. OK, you hang on to that one, mate. So hang on to that pump. So we got .84 seconds. Can you write down there? 3 pumps .84s. Nice and big. Remember, the only difference between science mucking around is writing down what happens.
OK, so let’s just for easy calculations we’ll call it .8 so you can drop the four out .8.
So what is double 0.8? It is 1.6.
So we’re going to put in 6 pumps. Now we’re expecting a 1.6 second flight. That sounds fair enough. That’s our hypothesis. Double the pumps. Let’s see how we go. I’m just going to put the mic in here. OK, Count with me. 6 pumps. You’re ready. Are you ready? All right, I need to do this 321 push. OK, so it went further and we got 1.1 seconds nice and big 1.1.
OK, so did we get double? Is 1.1 double .8? No, it’s not. What’s going on here? We definitely put in double the pumps, but we did not get double the flight time. So what’s going on here? There’s something funny going on here. So same design of rocket. We’re now going to double it up from 6 to 12 pumps. OK, so what’s double 1.1? We’re now expecting a 2.2 second flight. That’s our hypothesis.
OK, so now we need to count in 12 pumps. Are you ready? Are you sure you’re ready? 321 Fire. OK, hold it up. Let it take it back to where it was. We want to compare our distances too. OK, OK, so hold up our rockets nice and high so we can see them if you’re holding our rocket. OK, so we’re definitely going further.
That flight went for 1.8 seconds. All right, so there we go.
So 3 pumps .8 of a second.
We doubled that to six. We got 1.1.
We doubled that to 12. We got 1.8.
We’re doubling our pumps. But are we getting double the flight time? No, we’re not. What do we think’s happening? Thanks, girls. You can take a seat.
Well, what do you think’s happening? What did you say?
Friction.
Friction’s definitely part of it.
It’s pumping on the station.
OK. Thank you for your help.
So there’s our results. We’re putting in double the pumps, but we’re not getting double the flight time.
OK, alright, what do we think the problem is? Why are we not getting double the flight time? What do you think? We’ve spoken about it. What do you think it is? That’s part of it. What do you think?
Friction. Yeah, that’s part of it.
There’s a concept we’ve spoken up the back. What do you think? That’s part of it as well?
Alright, there’s a, there’s a there’s something.
I’m speaking.
What do you think, buddy?
Yep.
You, buddy.
Oh, I’m impressed with the aerodynamic word. OK.
The reason we’re not getting double the flight time is because we, we’ve done fair testing.
The reason we’re not getting double the flight time is because of that, because of opposing forces.
Opposing forces.
How many forces have we got pushing the rocket along?
One we’ve got thrust.
How many horses have we got trying to stop, and how many stop forces? 2 So we’ve got twice as many stopping forces as we have go forces.
Now, if we did this experiment on the moon, it’d be different. Is there any air on the moon? Is there any atmosphere on the moon? No.
So we’d take away air resistance. That’d be gone. So we’d remove one of the opposing forces. We’d only have the moon’s gravity. Alright, so you probably would get double the flight time if this on the moon. Mr Marinucci and I did enquire about doing an excursion to the moon, but it’s gonna be like $10 billion and that’s a whole lot of sausage sizzleto do. So we thought no, we’ll give it a miss today. Plus there’s a few risk assessment issues as well, going to the moon with students and explosive rockets and stuff. So yeah, there is. The reason we’re not getting double the flight time is because of opposing forces.
Now, we thought these rockets were pretty cool. Should we do that again? All right, let’s go.
OK, we’ll do one more launch because what we’re going to do, we’re going to do lunchtime launch time where we’re going to launch rockets and we’re going to put a bit of water in it. Our fair testing variable will be the amount of water we put into our rockets.
All right, count with me. How many? How many pumps? I did 15. All right, let’s see how we go. Are we ready? All right, count with me. You’re ready. There we go. All right, team, thank you very much for having me.
We’re not over yet at lunchtime. We’re going to do lunchtime, lunchtime launching our high power rockets.
So has anyone got any questions for me before we go? All right, I’ll come out and walk around and get some, do some Question Time. OK, who’s got questions? It doesn’t have to be. It could be about aeroplanes, helicopters, rockets. It can be anything. I mean flying jet aeroplanes before any of you were born.
What’s your question mate?
Do you like flying planes?
I’ve been flying aeroplane first, had my hands on the controls in the aeroplane the day I turned 8 years old. A family friend took me flying.
What’s your question mate?
How far would it go?
I’d probably pop the bottle with that much air pumped into it because you can compress air. And it’s like what happens when you keep blowing a balloon up? You put more air and more air and more. What eventually happens? It pops. And that’s exactly what will happen to our bottle if I kept putting air in it.
OK, what’s the question for you over here? What’s your question?
Have the others flown a rocket?
No, I’ve never flown a rocket. Not, not many people have. There’s only been about 600 astronauts that have gone to space and you can believe it, only about 60 of them were women. And you know, there’s never ever, ever been an Australian born woman astronaut. How cool would it be for a Saint Francis girl to be the first Australian woman to go to space? That’d be awesome, wouldn’t it? You just got to make sure you invite, you know, Mr Marinucci and I to your press conference. And so, yeah, I’d just like to thank my awesome principal from Saint Francis for Cran, that rocket man, for inspiring me to be. Make sure you invite us.
OK, What’s the question over here?
The first aeroplane that I was in as a passenger was that little 1 you saw. The photo of the first aeroplane I flew when I was the captain was a Cester 152BUE Redcliffe, runway 07, Anzac Day 1997 mid morning. You never, ever, ever forget your first solo flight.
OK, we need some questions over here.
Would you like to fly a rocket?
I would like the Virgin Galactic space plane where it gets dropped from a mothership and then it has this a hybrid rocket motor which then zooms it up past the 100 kilometre mark to get the space.
Do you know it’s only 100 kilometres to space, right? Right here where we’re standing in Crestmed. You’re closer to outer space than you are Noosa. Noosa’s further away than outer space, but what’s that invisible non contact force that keeps pulling us down? Gravity. You’ve got to fight gravity. All that 100 kilometres. That’s why it’s hard.
I’ve flown lots of commercial planes. That was my job. The Airbus A320, the Airbus A330, the Boeing 787.
OK, how are we doing for time, Mr Marinucci?
Let’s just wind it up.
So I’ll give the microphone back to Mr Marinucci.
I’m gonna be hanging around for a little bit longer, so if you’ve got other burning questions, I’m not racing off.
You can ask me over lunchtime.
All right.
Thank you, Mr Marinucci.
