Taking science and technology to new heights. Rocket science includes ideas of forces and motion, how rockets work and some of the challenges for those wanting...
Position: Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Canterbury University and Director of the Advanced Energy and Material Systems Lab. Field: Energy and materials engineering. Professor Susan Krumdieck...
Position: CEO and technical director, Rocket Lab Field: Rocket engineering Sir Peter Beck is CEO and technical director of Rocket Lab, a New Zealand rocket technology...
How does the acceleration of a model rocket compare to the Space Shuttle? By using the resultant force and mass, acceleration can be calculated. Forces acting...
Hypersonic vehicles are perhaps a dream of the future, but if they have a chance of happening, research is important to develop materials that will handle...
Rockets launched into space can be suborbital (brief visit to space) or orbital (staying in motion around the Earth) or can escape Earth’s gravity to travel...
Chemical rocket engines use a fuel (something to burn) and an oxidiser (something to react with the fuel). Together, they are referred to as the propellant....
The mass of a rocket is important for two reasons – an object with less mass accelerates more quickly, and an object with more mass has...
What is a rocket pushing against to make it start moving? Is it pushing against the ground? The air? The flames? To make any object start...
A rocket will launch and keep speeding up as long as the force pushing it upwards (thrust) is greater than the forces pulling and pushing it...
Dr Susan Krumdieck from the University of Canterbury is helping to develop new materials for possible future hypersonic vehicles that travel 10 times the speed of...
University of Canterbury PhD students Malcolm Snowdon and Avinash Rao are developing flight control systems for rockets. They use electronic sensors to measure any changes in...
Rocket Lab launched New Zealand’s first rocket designed to reach space in 2009. Their goal in launching the rocket, was to develop and showcase innovative technology...
Rocket science includes ideas of forces and motion, how rockets work and some of the challenges for those wanting to make rockets go faster and higher....
An inquiry approach is a method often used in science education. The question bank provides an initial list of questions about rockets and places where their...
This timeline looks at some of the historical aspects of rockets – taking science and technology to new heights. 1232 – Chinese fire arrows The first...
Born in England in 1643, Sir Isaac Newton could easily have ended up as a farmer instead of becoming one of the world’s greatest scientific minds....
Liquid is one of the states of matter, and viscosity is a property of liquid. Some liquids display strange behaviour because their viscosity makes them flow...
Shaan Singh-Prahar (13) and Jerram Bryant (12) created quite a stir at the 2009 NIWA science fair held in Hamilton. The two Year 8 boys from...
Many people have heard of Sir Isaac Newton. He is famous for developing many scientific theories in mathematics and physics. Newton described how ‘normal’ liquids or...
Liquids are one of the states of matter – the other states are solids, gases, plasmas and Bose-Einstein condensates. The simplest way to determine if something...
If you poured some water down a slope, it would flow freely and quickly, but what about if you repeated the process with honey? Can you...
New Zealand’s economy is highly reliant on the dairy industry so anything that affects the quality of our milk products is extremely important. One condition that...
This investigation gives students an opportunity to develop an understanding of speed and introduces acceleration. By measuring distance and time, they will calculate the speeds of...
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