Tea Bag Rockets

After seeing a cool trick on Youtube about paper of a tea bag being lit up and flying in the air. I was inspired to conduct the same experiment, but trying different kinds of paper to find which will fly the highest after lighting it up.

I believe the teabag paper will fly the highest. This is because it will be easiest to go into the air since it is the thinnest.

1. Use scissors to cut off the top of the tea bag.

2. Empty the contents of the tea bag into the trash

3. Unfold and straighten the empty bag. Open it so that it looks like a cylinder and is pretty straight.

4. Light the top rim of the bag on fire all the way around the edge.

5. Measure height

6. Test 3 more times

7. Repeat test with other types of paper.

The results proved my hypothesis correct. The tea bag was indeed the highest to go up than the others. After doing some more research on reliable sources I found that it works with a other paper, ditto paper, though it I wasn’t able to test it now since it is poisonous to humans. I believe that since I only did three types of paper I wasn’t able to get a wider range of data. Perhaps if I used more kinds of different quality paper another one would work. Accuracy was kept as I cut the same length for each one and set each one up the same way without using other objects like tape. I have learned that you always have to be a few steps ahead when you do an experiment and to also have fun while doing it.

I wanted to find which kind of paper will float the highest once set aflame. I believed the thinnest paper will fly the highest. This is because it will be easier to lift into the air. In this case the tea bag paper was the thinnest paper in this experiment. I chose this experiment because I once saw a video of this being done with a tea bag, so I wondered if it would work with other papers.

In this experiment 3 types of paper were used, white paper, toilet paper, and a teabag. When I started to do this experiment I used scissors to cut off the top of the tea bag. Then I emptied the contents of the tea bag into the trash, keeping only the paper left. After that I unfolded and straightened the empty bag and opened it so that it would look like a cylinder. Then I Lit the top rim of the bag on fire all the way around the top edge. Then I measured the height, recorded the data and tried it 2 more times. I did a similar test for the other two papers I used to make it fair and more reliable. This experiment did although need adult supervision as it had fire involved.

The data showed that the teabag was the highest to fly up into the air. With that, it averaged up to 1.30 meters of height. The other papers I used in this experiment (said above) failed to even go up an millimeter as it instead burned into ash of its former shape. An analysis of this data showed that that it needed to have very light paper to conduct it correctly.

The results proved my hypothesis correct. The tea bag was indeed the highest to go up than the others. After doing some more research on reliable sources I found that it works with a other paper, ditto paper, though it I wasn’t able to test it now since it is poisonous to humans. I believe that since I only did three types of paper I wasn’t able to get a wider range of data. Perhaps if I used more kinds of different quality paper another one would work. Accuracy was kept as I cut the same length for each one and set each one up the same way without using other objects like tape. I have learned that you always have to be a few steps ahead when you do an experiment and to also have fun while doing it.

Resources: https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/tea-bag-liftoff/

https://www.questacon.edu.au/outreach/programs/science-circus/videos/teabag-rocket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xp_imnO6WE