College Admissions Essay: My Water Bottle Rocket

Thomas Alba Edison made a thousand unsuccessful attempts at inventing the wonder of modern society, the light bulb. I felt incredibly similar when I was building my water bottle rocket. Whether it was modifying the parachute’s diameter, fortifying the union between the bottles, or changing the angle of the fins, most attempts were failures. However, like any other engineer, I thrived and persisted for a moment of success. During freshmen year, my teacher guided us to the world of engineering by assigning several projects. Nevertheless, I was oblivious on even the simplest thing, how to properly utilize a drill. Unshackling myself from the fear and uncertainty of failure, I started experimenting with the different disciplines of engineering.

While building my water bottle rocket, I discovered a bunch of plastic, cardboard, and water could be complex. The connectivity and relationship of all the engineering disciplines intrigued me, waking up a voracious feeling of learning them. Different concepts, such as aerodynamics, the properties of water, and physics, could be used along with SOLIDWORKS, or computer modeling, to 3d print the nozzle. Every different engineering discipline can come together to result in one marvelous outcome, a successful launch. Challenged by our classroom competitions, I was delighted to surpass the teacher’s expectations. Some of my classmates were utilizing a windup toy timer for their parachute deployment. My mind raced through the different outcomes and ways to improve this method. Eager to attempt many different methods, I raced home and devised a parachute deployment system using an altimeter to accurately deploy the parachute, giving me the victory on our class contest. It is invigorating that any project is never truly finished in engineering, but craving for further improvement. The ability of picking up a drill or assembling household items into something practical is encouraging ideal, dragging me every time deeper into the wonders of