Make: Bottle Rocket
March 4 & 11, 2007
We devoted two weekends (and two family gatherings) to make a rocket out of two 2-litre soda bottles, a project from Make: magazine. We tapped Jen's dad's engineering experience, as well as his retirement vocation of building remote-controlled model airplanes. Before a sunday prime rib dinner at our house, we enlisted everyone in a production line of sanding, cutting, drilling and gluing to make the gantry lift and parachute. Then the next weekend at Beck & Jim's we picked up where we left off, finished the nose cone, and launched the sucker.
To our great surprise, it shot a hundred feet into the air, before dropping like a rock to the cul de sac.
Never did get the parachute to deploy on apogee, but we had a good time.
