All posts by rogue lj

Rocketry Tinkering Part One – The Build

Rocketry Tinkering

I built a bottle rocket last week to introduce my 4-and-a-bit year old to the joys of propulsion (and me… it was a learning curve). After we’d had an afternoon of fun seeing how high it would go, I decided to build a sturdier version.

From Rocket v1

In the picture above you can see the bits and pieces I used. The fins were from frozen pizza packaging. Cheap duct tape and a very cheap (reduced to £2.99!) contour gauge from Aldi were used. Here’s a picture of the fin once i’d hacked out the shape of the bottle:

From Rocket v1

Notice the dent in the side – this was damage from the previous incarnation. Also notice how i’m no ballistics or rocketry expert, so the fin is most likely completely the wrong shape and size…

Here’s the finished article:

From Rocket v1

Coming next… for no good reason whatsoever… a 3D scan of the rocket.