Water Bottle Rocket Project: An afternoon of fun.

Kids and I build a water bottle rocket this afternoon... first few attempts were duds... until we worked the kinks out.

Wow ... what a blast (pun intended).

The video:
First attempt: the cork wasn't creating a tight seal:



Next attempt: We put some duct tape around the cork to get a better seal







I wish I were smart like those Mythbuster guys and could figure out how high/fast the bottle went... hang time is easily 5 or 6 seconds for some of the tries.

Here are some frame captures from the video -- just to give you a sense of the explosive nature of the project.











that tiny green spec -- ! -- is the bottle -- yikes that's high




Building the rocket:

Materials:
• Wine cork
• 2 litre pop bottle
• inflatable needle (like you'd use to inflate a basketball)
• air compressor
• water
• plastic pipe

How we did it:
The plastic pipe is the base - you need to cut a hole in it big enough to insert the end of the air compressor


Take a wine cork and cut it in half

Insert a "inflatable needle" into the cork - it needs to stick out past the end of the cork.



Wrap some duct tape around the cork (this was the missing step from earlier failures) - the duct tape creates a tight seal. You may not need to do this if the cork creates a tight seal on its own



Fill a 2 litre pop bottle about 1/4 full of water

Insert the cork - through the hole in the pipe stand - and into the 2 litre pop bottle



Turn the compressor on and GET BACK.

The rocket always went the same direction (straight up) but I had the kids behind a cardboard "blast shield" just in case.

Best part of the project, the total cost was $0 -- as we just made use on material around the house.