Bearded Science Guy, here,
and today I'm going to show you how,
with five dollars
and a little bit of elbow grease,
you can be building rockets capable of launching an entire football field.
To start with,
wrap a shoot of cardstock around a 1/2 inch PVC pipe
make sure that the cardstock slides freely
along the PVC pipe,
or else the rocket won't launch when it comes time.
Then, take a piece of electrical tape
and tape the cardstock in place
After a few more pieces of tape,
you have now completed the body of your rocket.
The next steps is to seal up the front end of your rocket.
Now, be careful!
Most of the pressure of the rocket launch
will be placed on this front end,
so make sure you tape it shut really well.
After you've completed sealing up the end of your rocket
the next step is to choose a nose cone.
There are a lot of different types of nose cones
you could choose,
but for this demonstration
we're going to use a pointed nose cone.
Take a piece of cardstock
and roll it into a cone.
Now using electrical tape,
tape the cone in place
so it doesn't slide around.
The nose cone is way too big for our rocket
so you what you need to do
is figure out where you need to cut it at.
Take the body of your rocket
and slide it into the nose cone
and feel where the rocket meets the edge of the nose cone.
This is where you need to cut it.
Once you have the nose cone
cut to size, you can trim up the edges
so there's a nice fit between the body of your rocket
and the nose cone.
Then, tape the nose cone in place.
Once your nose cone has been taped in place,
now you're ready for your tail fins.
Start by designing your tail fins on a blank piece of paper.
Here, I've decided to use
three triangle tail fins.
But you can use a different number of tail fins
or decide on a different shape for your tail fins all together.
Once you have the tail fins cut out,
now you're ready to attach them to the body of your rocket.
Here, we'll be using electrical tape to
do this but you can use any number of
adhesives to get the job done.
Tape both sides of the tail fin to the rocket
body if you want it to stand straight out, perpendicular
to the rocket body.
Once you've attached all the tail fins,
you're rocket's ready to fly!
Now, we just need to build a launcher.
And for this launch, we're going to use a two-liter
bottle, one half inch PVC pipe
and electrical tape
To start building your launcher
First you need a base
I've chosen to use three one half in PVC pipes,
taped together, but you could
very easily use a two-by-four
or some other sturdy base to keep the
rocket launcher steady.
Once you have your base constructed,
take the two liter bottle and
insert a section of one half inch PVC pipe.
It should be a very snug fit.
However, it is still a good idea to use
electrical tape so that this connection
doesn't come loose during launching.
Now connect a threaded
90 degree turn elbow
using the same method with electrical tape
The reason we're using threaded elbows
is so that you can adjust the angle at
which you're launching the rockets.
Now connect the second elbow
and your final piece of one half inch PVC pipe
The final step in the process
is taping the launcher to the base we made in step one.
Once the tape is secured,
you're rocket launcher is ready to fire!
These rockets have the ability to travel
almost 100 yards
so it's a good idea to use eye protection and be
outside when you're testing your rocket launcher.
Load your rocket on the end of the
one half inch PVC pipe
and then stomp on the two liter bottle and
watch it fly!
Thanks for watching
Bearded Science Guy.
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