December 6, 2012

Home Made Rockets

The fascination with making your own never fades from being a young boy and as we are all 10-years old at heart, we thought you might enjoy this educational piece to see you through the long dark nights for some fun and frolics.

Making rockets from things that you have around the house will cost just a few quid and is great fun too. You will need matches, cheap tin foil, a pin and a couple of paper clips.

Method:

• Wrap a small piece of the thinnest tin foil you can find (weight being important in this experiment) around a match with a pin held along the side which will be removed to create the tunnel for expanding gases generating thrust
• Make sure that the foil forms a tight seal around the head of the match and along the pin for the tunnel and create a point for the top of the rocket – this helps flight – remove the pin
• Bend a paper clip to create a launch pad – not very stable so feel free to experiment with other ideas – we also tried making a launch pad with tin foil which had varied results and some blue-tack which again, had mixed results too
• Then apply heat – preferably a long-necked lighter (like the ones you get from any number of market stalls for lighting barbecues) and wait for launch

Some of the ones we experimented with managed up to 10 feet and over and the others fizzed and died or managed an inch or two only but it was great fun anyway.

Just remember, you are using matches so safety first – only do this in a well-ventilated area and wear eye protectors. It is also a good idea to keep a bucket of water available to enable you to extinguish any problems that might occur.

You can download a simple DIY pdf sheet with all the instructions here :)