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Hey guys, welcome back. I'm Nate. Thank you for joining me today on the King of Random.
In our last couple videos, we've shown you how to take zinc powder and sulphur
and make a simple rocket fuel and how to make a small rocket out of a ballpoint pen.
Today we're gonna show you how to build the launch pad
and the electric igniters that we used to fire off those rockets
Let's start by building our launch pad. The materials for this are very simple.
I have here a 5 by 1 board, a coat hanger and four screws
We're also going to be using some wood glue, a staple gun and a drill
Let's start by cutting a square piece off of our board
You don't have to use this same size. Anything over about 4 inches by 4 inches will work
Before I take the measurements to make my square,
I want to be sure that I have a clean straight edge on my board
Before I call this a 5 by 1 inch board
But that's actually the size of the plank before it's milled down.
The actual width of this board appears to be about 4 and 7/16
So we'll measure that size and cut the board out of the square
Now let's cut off a strip about one inch wide which will then be cut into four pieces as feet for our launch pad
It doesn't have to be exactly an inch. I ended up cutting mine about 7/8 of an inch wide
With our four feet cut we're ready to attach them, but before we do that really quickly
I'm gonna draw a couple lines going across our launch pad base, so we know exactly where the center is
Now using a small dot of wood glue. Let's attach one foot in each corner of the base
While the glue on the base is drying, let's prep our coat hanger.
First we want to cut the coat hanger here and here
The long straight part of the hanger wire is going to be the guiding rod for the rocket
and we want to bend the bottom part into a curve that will fit nicely inside our base.
You'll want the curved base of the wire to be as perpendicular to the straight part
of the wire as you can make it. This will help your rockets launch straighter.
Now that the glue has dried. Let's pre-drill a hole into each foot and drive a screw into them
To be sure our base can sit flush with the ground, I'm going to countersink each of the holes a little bit
Now let's drill a hole for the hanger wire which will act as a guiding rod for our rockets.
We want to drill bit that is slightly larger than our hanger wire so that it will fit through the hole easily.
I'm using a 1/8 inch drill bit.
I'm going to set the hole about a quarter inch off center so that the rocket can sit in the middle of the launchpad.
Let's quickly sand down the launchpad just to give it a nice finished look.
Just for fun, I'm going to use some of this truck bedliner spray to get a part of our launchpad a cool textured look.
The last step is to fit the wire through the hole and use a staple gun to secure it in place.
With the launchpad built, let's get started on the igniters.
These are a simple single-use electric starter that works great with this type of fuel.
You'll need the following supplies.
Some Christmas lights. The small non LED type bulbs,
some speaker wire, wire cutters, tape and a 9-volt battery. Let's start with the light bulb.
First, we need to remove it from the string of lights and it's plastic housing.
Usually you can do this just by pulling on the bulb. If this piece of plastic comes out with your bulb,
straighten out the copper wires at the back and just pull it off
We need to expose the filament on the inside. So once we've removed the bulb
from the string, we need to break off the glass around it.
Over a trash can you want to use your wire cutters to break the bulb.
The first step is to break off the small glass ball at the tip of the light bulb
Start at the top and very carefully break the bulb off using the wire cutters
It's easy to cut through the glass and into the wire
You need to make sure you don't damage any of the wires inside.
If you do accidentally break the tiny filament, fill the bulb away and get a new one.
In newer lights there will be a very thin wire wrapped around the bottom of the two copper posts.
This helps keep your Christmas lights from going out in case the bulb dies. We need to carefully remove that wire.
Our bulb is ready. Now let's attach a length of wire to the back of it.
Cut off a length of speaker wire about a foot long.
Put the ends of the wires and strip three quarters of an inch from all four ends.
Carefully wrap wire around each of the two copper leads running into the light bulb.
Use a small piece of tape to wrap around one connection and then the other.
This will prevent the two wires from touching each other and interfering with the intended path of the electricity.
At this point our electric igniter is actually ready to use.
But because we don't want to be standing quite so close to the rocket when it goes off,
we can attach a longer length of speaker wire to the back
To activate your igniter, touch the other ends of your longer wire to the
positive and negative terminals of a fresh 9-volt battery.
Now that our launch pad and igniters are complete, let's grab some rockets and fire them off.
In our test launches yesterday, a couple of the rockets turned sideways shortly after ignition.
When watching the video in slow motion,
I noticed that there is a small jet of flame coming out the side of the pen.
These pens usually have a very small hole in them which lets the pressure equalized and the ink flow better.
But that's not good for rocketry. Some of the fuel was burning sideways out of the pen and
pushing it as it launched. That pressure was enough to tear the guiding straw
off of the rocket and the whole rocket would go sideways.
To try and fix this problem, I've plugged up the hole with a small dot of super glue
and reinforced the connection of the straw to the rocket.
To start let's fill our pen rocket with fuel.
A small creased piece of paper is an easy way to pour fuel into the narrow opening in the rocket
I like to hold the rocket over the container that holds the fuel. So that if I spill, It's not lost.
You want to fill the body of the pen rocket with fuel until there's about half an inch empty at the top
It's important that you don't pack this fuel down too much. The denser it is, the slower it burns.
We want a very quick burn so we try to leave it nice and unpacked inside the pen.
Once your rocket is full of fuel, gently press the igniter down into the fuel.
Be careful with this. Because if you're too rough,
you can tear the filament of the light bulb and it won't ignite.
Next, we want to take a small piece of paper towel or toilet paper and use it to fill in the gap between the wire
and the body of the rocket. This will keep your fuel from spilling out around the sides of the igniter.
With the pen rocket back right side up, gently tap it so that the powder fuel settles around the igniter.
Run the hanger wire through the guiding straw on the rocket and lower it down until it rests on the launch pad.
Let's twist on our longer piece of wire.
We've filled our rocket with fuel, we have attached our igniter,
we've attached our extension wire to our igniter, and we're ready to go with the rocket on the launch pad.
Three, two, one...
Our battery ignition system worked great. But because it's cooler,
I'm going to use our N64 control launcher that we've built in a previous video.
Three, two, one...
HA!! RIGHT HERE!
Hahaha. Our rocket only traveled like eight feet away from it's launch site that is straight up and down.
That's amazing. One, two, three, four, five. Five steps away. That's how straight down it came this time.
Whew! it's all hillarious. You're like hmm. I wonder where it landed. Oh well.
I guess I'll never find it. 'Thump' and then it lands. These things get pretty good height.
Like I was sure it already landed somewhere, and I was like it's lost forever. Nope.
Boom...
Beautiful. It smells like sulfur, just a little bit almost no smell to it really
But sulfur is the main smell. All right winds died down.
Three, Two, One...
That exploded.. into pieces.
All right that was supposed to be a rocket
and ... instead
It shattered everything. I saw pieces flying everywhere.
This is probably the largest piece and it's the easiest to find because it's got a bright orange tip.
Uh. Haven't had that happen before. I've done at least 10 of these so far
and I've talked to someone who's done like dozens of them.
Uh, nope, haven't had one explode before. This one did.
Interesting.
Three, Two, One...
There you have it, that's how you can build a custom rocket launch pad and electric igniter.
This launch pad and igniter work perfectly with our pen rockets and our zinc-sulfur fuel mixture.
This is a super easy and basic way to get into beginning rocketry.
You could build the pen, the base, the igniter and mix up the fuel all in one day.
It's been a fun few projects and I hope that you have a chance to build these and try them out yourselves.
Be sure to check your local laws about where you are and are not allowed to launch rockets.
Thanks for joining us for this project today and we look forward to the next one. Talk to you then.
It looks so good until you launch one rocket on it.
Our rocket launch pad used to look so pretty with its black textured base and the wood border going around it
It still it's really cool because it's got authentic blast patterns on it.
But it's not quite as clean as it was before. I think the rocket may have melted through some of that paint too.
Beautiful. Ah!! So that's a great failure. You're gonna have a failure it better be catastrophic.
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