Air Pressure Rocket

Do you want to have a rocket which can fly about 20 meters high? In this instructable I show you how to make one without many tools and materials.

Notes: First I want to apologize for any spelling mistakes I might make since English is a second language for me. Also I want to point out that there is a similar rocket instructable ("homemade water rocket demon! boom!") which I only saw when I was done with building my rocket.

To build the rocket you will need:

materials:

• a bottle (preferably hard plastic and thick walls)
• 3 skewers
• 2-3 straws
• a platform eg a piece of wood
• a valve from a bike
• a plug (rubber or cork)

tools:

• a drill
• a hot glue gun
• a bicycle pump
• (optional) some paint, paper or other decorations

To make the launch pad you first have to draw a circle the size of the bottle in the middle of the platform. Now you need to mark 3 equally spaced points on the circle. To do that easily you can draw a equilateral triangle in the circle.

After that you have to drill the holes the size of your straws.

Now you can stick the straws into the holes with a hot glue gun.

To get the valve into the plug you have to drill a hole into the plug (it's harder to drill a hole into rubber than into cork). As long as the hole isn't too big you don't need to stick the valve in. (Don't forget to cut off the rests of the bicycle tube.)

Before you can go on you have to decide if you want to decorate the bottle as a rocket. But be carefull the heavyer the bottle is the less high it flys.

After decorating you have to stick the skewers on the bottle so that they fit perfectly into the straws.

To start the rocket you have to go to a place where you have a lot of space eg a meadow. Then you fill a third of the bottle with water, push the plug-valve into the bottle as hard as you can, connect the bicycle pump with the valve and pump!

If you want to see how robust your rocket was you can make before and after pictures.