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Flying Tea Rocket

The science of hot air and convection


The Tea Bag Rocket is really an adaptation of a classic science demonstration called the Ditto Paper Rocket. Each piece of Ditto paper had a sheet of tissue paper that separated the two-part form, and it was this discarded piece of paper that kids used to make the "rocket." Since Ditto paper is a thing of the past, science teachers found a simple replacement - a tea bag.  Watch the video and see the floating ball of ashes.

Fly even higher

Christina Sheffel    -  March 16, 2011

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This user gave 5/5 stars


I do a lot of science demos for kids and this is always a favorite. If you double up, putting one emptied tea bag into another, you can get the "rocket" to go even higher. Kids wanted to know what would happen if we had three layers. So we tried it out and... welllll, give it a try!

Answer

Tyler Pollick    -  March 5, 2011

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This user gave 5/5 stars


As the tea bag burns it creates a convection current drawing the bag up, but the bag is only light enough when it is all burned.
9th Grader
Kiowa High School

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