DIY pvc pipe rocket launcher

Hi all. Before nosotros become to today's tutorial I want to let you know I'm participating in a fun invitee mail extravanganza hosted by Carbohydrate Bee Crafts. Every solar day for the next few weeks she's linking to iv different red-white-and-blue guest posts, and today's project is one of them. Click on over to run across the three other projects for today and keep checking back for four projects each day!

Have any family unit gatherings coming upward this summertime? Maybe for the fourth? Or a reunion? This is the perfect activity when yous want to continue a bunch of kids happy outside this summertime: a DIY pvc pipe rocket launcher. With bones supplies from the hardware store, a bicycle pump or air compressor, and a few empty 2-liter bottles, you tin can keep your kids happy for hours launching rockets xl or 50 feet into the air (these babies wing!).

PLEASE NOTE: PARENTAL SUPERVISION IS REQUIRED. You are responsible for making certain your children are condom while operating this projection. Be sure your children are old enough to stay out of the way of the bottle rocket and take any other precautions you lot feel are necessary to go along everyone safe.

The instructions may look daunting, but it'southward really not hard and you tin can put it together in most half an hour. Yous'll need to program to let it dry for at to the lowest degree a few hours before using. (Note: I plant the plans for the rocket launcher here, and so this is non my original design. However, I am providing original photos and more detailed construction caption and graphics.)

Supplies: Toll of supplies is nearly $20, including 2 types of adhesive. If you already accept adhesive on hand, cost is quite a bit less, and making additional launchers would only price $five or so.

about five ft of i/ii inch pvc pipe, cut into (1) two ft slice, (2) 1 ft pieces, (1) 8 inch piece

two end caps (slip) – 1/ii inch

i elbow (slip) – ane/2 inch

2 male adaptors (sideslip) – 1/2 inch

i tee (slip on the sides, screw on the bottom) – 1/2 inch

one tire valve cut from an old tube

electical tape

pvc pipe cement

adhesive that works on condom, such every bit Clomp cement

tire pump or air compressor

ii liter bottles (i/2 liter water bottles will also piece of work)

drill

Hither'southward a photograph of how everything fits together:

Start by cutting a tire valve out of an old tube (or purchasing a tire valve). Cut the prophylactic at the base of the valve and so information technology fits within an end cap. Drill a hole in the end cap just big enough for the valve to fit through. Place barge cement inside the finish cap and on the valve, pull it tight through the hole. Ready bated for a few minutes to dry. (This is the hardest part, and it'southward not even that hard).

Put it all together:

Now you tin can adhere a bike pump or air compressor to the tire valve. Then fill a 2-liter bottle most one/3 full of water and identify it on top of the tape wrapped male adaptor – twist it on to get a pretty skillful seal. Beginning pumping air in and wait for the bottle to explode off the launcher, shooting up into the air and spraying everyone with water. Then the laughs volition begin!

A few notes:

1 – we couldn't find barge cement at Home Depot (it is bachelor on amazon) so nosotros used a unlike gum to attach the tire valve to the endcap. The seal wasn't perfect, which ways air escaped around the tire valve, making it harder to build upwardly enough pressure for a launch. Nosotros ended upwardly wrapping that end cap and tire valve tightly with electrical record to proceed a tight seal and that worked but fine.

2 – go along modest children abroad from the launcher. The bottles shoot up pretty fast, so you desire to make sure no one gets injured. If yous push the bottle pretty firmly onto the launcher no one needs to be touching it while air is getting pumped in.

three – the electric tape volition begin to go all smooshed up subsequently a few launches, and so you lot may need to accept it off and wrap more on occasionally.

4 – kids can decorate their own bottles and add fins on the sides, just Exercise NOT put cones on the top to make them wait more like rockets – these wing very high and you don't want anything pointy heading back downward at yous.

v – how high the rockets fly depends on how tightly y'all twist them down onto the launcher, how much water is in them, and how quickly yous tin can build upwards the pressure necessary to pop it off – let kids experiment to come across what the best combination is.

vi – my ten-year olds were able to launch the rockets on their own, only my 5-yr erstwhile wasn't quite strong enough to practise and then with the bike pump, so plan to help younger kids.

7 – you can unscrew the launcher at the tee for storage.

Have fun!