Rocket Making

Work with friends or a parent to make your very own flying rocket from things you would find around the house. How far can you shoot? Why not make a competition out of it? This activity is brought to you with thanks to the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

To make your rocket launcher, you will need…
1 x 50 cm length of electrical tubing
1 x Inner tubing from a bicycle wheel at least 75cm long
2 x Cable ties
1 x 2 litre Drinks bottle

To make your rocket, you will need…
1 x A4 sheet of paper
1 x Piece of card A5 size
Sticky Tape

Rocket

• Roll the piece of paper around the electrical tube to make a tube shaped body for the rocket. It should fit snugly on the electrical tube, but come off easily

• Fold the top of the body of the rocket over and tape down to make air tight.

• Make a cone from a circle of card and stick on the top. Make tail fins from triangles of card and stick them to the rocket.

Launcher

• Take the piece of electrical tubing and attach the bike inner tube to one end using a cable tie. Make sure it is as air tight as possible.
• Attach the mouth of the bottle to the other end of the inner tube using the other cable tie. Again try to get it as air tight as possible.
• You have now made your launcher.
• To launch your rocket put it on the end of the electrical tube and stamp on the bottle to force air up the tube to fire the rocket.
• Once fired the launcher can be reset by blowing into the tube to re-inflate the bottle.

Why not try out new designs to make your rocket fly as far as possible. Would the tail fins be better at the top, middle or bottom of the rocket? What about extra fins? Change your design and try out your rocket.