Reflection

Ours did not shoot or even budge. It just burned the plastic. The reason it didn't work is for two reasons. One is the Gay-lussac's law states that the colder the air the less volume of a gas. So the co2 wouldn't expand as much as expected. Therefore the ball didn't shoot. The reason the plastic burned is because, in our design, the combustion chamber was doubled up and there was one tube of plastic inside another so the plastic wouldn't expand and there would be more pressure on the ball as opposed to more pressure on the plastic going outwards. Therefore, we had to make two holes in the combustion chamber and when we stuck the burning stick inside the combustion chamber to light the ethanol, we put the stick through the first hole but not the second hole where the ethanol is. So it just burned the plastic. And that is why the cannon failed. If we could do this differently we would change the design so the combustion chamber wasn't doubled up.