♪ ♪
NATE: I'm Nate from Design Squad,
and I love things that launch and fly.
Have you ever been at a restaurant before
and you carefully tear off the end
of the paper wrapper on a straw and then blow it off?
(breath echoing)
What if we made a really big version of that?
Yeah.
NATE: Today I'm working with Grace and Ruby.
And I've asked them to help me build some stomp rockets.
We're using mostly recycled materials,
like paper and bottles.
NATE: These act like some pretty good lung power.
I feel air. (plastic bottle crinkling)
(kids laugh)
I brought a couple of things, too.
You recognize those?
Is this the inner tube to a bicycle tire?
- Yes.
And I brought these PVC pipes
because they reminded me of really big straws.
And I thought the bike inner tubes might help us
connect them both together.
RUBY: We use duct tape to attach
one side of the inner tube to the pipe
and the other side to a bottle.
The thing with the duct tape is, it makes sure
that you don't lose air when you're squeezing the bottle.
We've got Grace's design,
which has a smaller-diameter tube,
a one-liter plastic bottle, and a three-quarter-inch PVC pipe.
We've got Ruby's design that has an old detergent bottle,
a larger bike inner tube that's also longer,
and also the same diameter of three-quarter-inch PVC pipe.
First, we wanted to make sure the primary system was working.
So we tested that with bottle caps.
Three, two, one...
(kids laugh)
When we hit the bottle, we're compressing the air,
and the air needs a place to go.
So it just has to go through the tube,
and then it goes through the pipe,
and then the cap will just shoot off,
because all that air is pushing it off.
NATE: This is probably the tiniest rocket
ever launched.
Do you think we'll need more pressure
when we launch the tube rockets? - Yeah.
I guess we could hold these for each other,
or we could build some stands.
What do you think? - Yeah, stands.
Stands? Okay.
♪ ♪
NATE: It's a tandem launchpad-- two launches at once.
Now we've gotta make the rocket that looks like the straw.
So I brought some materials for that, too.
Old recycled file folders.
We can roll them up to make a straw shape.
I'm using a paper bag
Slippery.
And I think that's really good.
At the top, I used foam.
It's soft and when... if it crashes, it won't, like, break.
I did a pattern-- black with stars on it,
and blue and silverish-gray.
I also see you've got some great fins on here.
RUBY: I'm going to put this foam ball at the top,
and it's a little bit too big,
but that's good, because it's really snug.
I covered the ball with duct tape
and added a foam nose cone like Grace's rocket.
I'm making one, too.
I want to experiment with a longer launch travel.
So my rocket is using two folders
to make it a lot bigger.
Are we ready to test? KIDS: Yeah!
NATE: Three, two, one...
(Ruby yells, Nate laughs)
NATE: Nice one, yeah!
RUBY: I think that went higher. NATE: That was awesome.
That actually did some gliding up at the top.
Yeah, I feel like the test went well.
- High five, nice work.
Three, two, one.
Whoa, no launch!
I think that this part is clogging the air.
NATE: Even if you stomp really hard,
no air pressure will go into the rocket.
You know, another quick test we could do
is to just try it out on Ruby's launchpad.
When I used the other launcher, it worked.
What's different about Ruby's launch system versus yours?
It has a wider tube.
So we got another, bigger tube
and we attached it on with some duct tape,
and then I put tape on the nose cone
to make sure no air could go through it.
Whoo! NATE: Yeah!
(Nate laughs)
RUBY: That went really high.
It's really going a lot higher with it.
NATE: Awesome, hey, high five.
I'm happy.
♪ ♪
NATE: I brought something extra fun.
To launch a bigger rocket, we needed a bigger tube.
GRACE: Yeah. - A bigger tube needs more air.
More air means we need bigger bottles.
And I thought, instead of just one bigger bottle,
why not add two?
So we can use even more volume of air.
Three at the same time? GRACE: Yeah.
- All right. - Jump.
(Grace yells)
NATE: Oh, we're all off the ground at the same time?
GRACE: No, I go first, and then...
NATE: Boom, boom, boom.
GRACE: Oh, that's when yours went so high.
RUBY: Yeah.
It looks like it went behind the tree,
but it didn't.
NATE: Oh, it's crashing through the tree right there,
look at that.
RUBY: I thought it was going to get stuck.
NATE: It took some leaves down with it.
Nate's rocket went so high.
RUBY: I think that happened
because of his two bottles
and him full-force jumping on them.
(wind blowing against rocket)
♪ ♪
Nate actually caught the rocket when it came down.
(Nate laughs)
RUBY: We're done with our rockets.
So now we can put our bottles back in the recycling bin.
NATE: Take a little time to look around your house
for some interesting recycled materials.
What kind of cool stuff can you build?
This has got to be one of my favorite uses
of recycled materials, I don't know about you.
- Yeah.
RUBY: What if we did a rocket this size
but we had a lot, a lot of big bottles?
GRACE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking.
NATE: We would need so many bottles.
That would be awesome.