Saturday, September 15, 2007

Water-powered Rocketry

About a year ago I got an issue of Make magazine with plans for a water-powered rocket. Well, I finally decided to give it a try. The build went pretty smoothly overall, with the main problems being finding a way to get glue to stick to a 2-liter bottle and finding the right o-ring/notch depth combination to create a good seal when pressurizing the rocket. Marcus, Elise, and our neighbor, Addie, helped... mostly with the parachute.

Today we headed out to Smith Park along with the Mangolds for the rocket's inaugural launch. I'd say it was a success because: no one got hurt, the rocket went up in the air, the parachute worked, nothing unfixable broke, and we all had fun. Next up... more height!

Here are some pictures:
Water-powered Rocket: First Launch


... and some videos:

Nose Cone Failure On First Launch:

Early Nose Cone Release And Tether Failure On Second Launch:

Our Best Launch:

2 comments:

Eric said...

those pictures are great. are you sure we're related? I could never build something like that and have it work!

Charles said...

Sure you could! The instructions I followed were pretty good, and there were only 2 little problems that I'm sure you could have solved. And if not, you could always ask me for help ;)