launching model rockets isn't all that expensive as far as hobbies go
but in case you're trying to save money in every way possible
today I'm gonna show you how you can build a rocket using materials you already
have
laying around the house. As far as materials the main things you are going to need
are some cardstock other heavy paper
some corrugated cardboard, and you're going to need a soda straw
To put it all together you are going to need tape
you'll also need some glue - just regular school glue is fine
a glue stick works pretty well and if you have a hot glue gun
that is also very handy for putting the fins on
before you get started the first thing you need to do is buy some
engines for the rocket. The reason we need to do that is that the engines are
what we'll use to
make the body tube the correct diameter. When it comes to engines
more powerful isn't necessarily better. The engine I'd suggest that you use for
this project is the A8-3 - that's a fairly low power engine that is
fairly thick in diameter. So it's an A-size engine
that is the same diameter as a B or a C. So if you want to
want to you can put bigger engines in later but generally what happens if you use a
powerful engine in a small rocket is that it goes so high you lose it.
and with these homemade rockets not having parachutes
they're even harder to see when they come down. if you're watching this video on
youtube you can click on the first link you see in the description below
and that will take you to my blog post associated with this video
and in that blog post we'll have links to various
engines that are suitable for use with this project. the first thing we're going
to do
is make the body tube and for that we are going to use some heavy paper
preferably cardstock or construction paper something like that; and what you
do is roll up the engines - spread out three engines
and roll it up. I"m gonna roll the paper side to side and so
the rocket will be 11 inches long. sometimes it works best to go ahead and roll it
completely up nice and tight
and then unroll it and add glue and then roll it up again
with the glue on it. If you wanna make the tube stronger you can add packing
tape to the outer seam
to add some strength to it. To make the nose of the rocket
just fold in two sides of the tube and put a piece of tape there
and then turn it and fold in the remaining two sides
and put a piece of tape over that as well. For fins we're just gonna use
corrugated cardboard. A triangle shape works pretty well but you can
experiment with other shapes as well
once you cut out one fin and then go ahead and use that
as a template to cut three more the same size
we also need to cut two or three small circles
out of the corrugated cardboard and you want them to be just a little bit
smaller than the width of the body tube
so go ahead and use the body tube to mark the circle and then cut just inside that
line
once he have those two or three pieces cut
go ahead and glue them together and so they're all in one block
you'll see what these are used for a little bit later on
to glue the fins on
typically just do one at a time and make sure it's completely dry
before you turn the tube and do another one
if you have a hot glue gun this works excellent for this because it doesn't
take long at all before
the glue sets up and then you can go ahead and get all the fins on in a
short time
once you do that it's still a good idea to take some school glue
and apply it to all the seams
where the fans join the body on both sides just to add a little strength.
The next thing we have to do is take that little block of cardboard and slide it
up into the tube and what we want this to do
is to block the engine from going completely inside the tube
in other words you want to position that block in the tube
so the engine will run into it
when there's still about a quarter inch of the engine protruding from the back of
the rocket
and that does two things: first, it keeps the engine from sliding up
into the rocket where you cannot get a hold of it and then secondly
it also makes so when the ejection charge of the engine fires
that the engine will fly out the back of the rocket and that makes the rocket
lighter
and less likely to get damaged when it falls
in order to glue this piece cardboard in the place you're gonna have to
put some glue on something long like a pencil or pen
and smear it inside the body tube at the proper location
and then use one of engines to push the piece of cardboard into place
the last thing you need to do is cut a piece of a soda straw
and glue that on the side the tube. I like to glue it right up
against one of the fines - it adds a little bit a strength that way
You'll use this to slide the rocket over
the rod on the launch pad and this guides the rocket for the first few feet of
its flight
so that's pretty much it as far as a construction. if you wanna make the
rocket look a little nicer
you can obviously paint it, but in our case we're just gonna go ahead and head
out to the launch pad
and we're going to see how these things work.