cliffs of insanity

blog of conan, melissa, and the mob

the rocket

March20

Every now and then I like to get crafty. Of course, having a cool project to work on helps, too.This Saturday, Neils and I created a 2-liter soda bottle rocket launcher. A 4-foot one :) We got the idea from Make magazine (one of my Christmas presents).

Here’s Neils by our make-shift work bench:
Our work table

Our handy-dandy instructions:
The instructions

Neils helped measure the PVC pipe we needed. I cut it “quietly” upon request from Neils.
Neils measuring the pipe

Then Neils helped sand off the burrs:
Neils sanding the end

After we got all of the pieces ready, we glued some of the parts together (photographed by Neils):
Conan gluing
And viola! It was done:
Nelis holding the launcher
(photo by Neils):
The launcher: Conan & Burke

We tried it out that night, but couldn’t see the bottle go up or come down. So we got it out again when it was sunny. Burke couldn’t wait to get going:
Burke ready to go launch something
And eventually we got it set up in the grass:
Filling the first bottle

The following is some video footage of it going off. (There are still some minor kinks to work out, but it’s fairly opperational as long as you doing mind putting yourself in harms way and getting a bit wet)

The Launch

posted under projects
One Comment to

“the rocket”

  1. On March 21st, 2006 at 7:26 pm Jodie Says:

    How fun! I can’t believe how old your boys are getting! This looked like a fun project, and I especially liked how nervous you looked, Conan, when you were lighting the rocket…just inching your way forward… :)