Photo Synthesis

Getting Started

Posted by Steve Jurvetson on May 13, 2009
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I am still collecting topic ideas from the prior post, but several people asked how to get started in rocketry, and what is legal in the local neighborhood. Well, if there is no fire involved, it is probably OK, and so the air, water and baking soda+vinegar rockets are probably fine in just about any town. The later category makes for some sour showers though:

Reflexology

This thing really pops up fast since it quickly evacuates all of its fuel (>95% of its weight). With a regular camera, the human reflex is not fast enough to capture the rocket in frame (there is no signal before it pops). So I set up the camera with a 16mm wide angle lens and used the motor drive to fire off a stream of 1/8000 sec exposures.

These rockets can easily be found online and they are fun for the young kids. Just be careful not to point the back end at anyone while swinging it into to position. Every one I have tried to launch seems to pop off before I can remove my hand… As seen in my very first rocket video… with my wife chuckling at my folly:


(alternate site if YouTube audio is failing)

Next, we’ll move to fire, because fire is cool.

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Comments

  1. #1 Spiv
    May 13, 2009

    Water rockets are a lot of fun and can definately teach a lot about rocketry (especially when you get into making your own out of coke bottles and stuff, learn about center of pressure vs CG, etc). Excellent and safe place for kids to get started.

    Best thing I’ve seen is the ones that have a remote release cable; these seem to be made a little better and hold in place while you put some real pressure into the bottle.

  2. #2 Greg Laden
    May 13, 2009

    Careful. You can poke your eye out with that thing.

  3. #3 Pdiff
    May 13, 2009

    Make magazine had a couple of articles on water and air rockets. Definitely fun, but …. bring on the fire :-)

    http://makezine.com/05/rocket/

    http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/03/compressed_air_rocket.html

  4. #4 oldcola
    May 13, 2009

    Hi Steve,
    Happy to see you @ Sb.

    I’ll bring matches for your next post.

  5. #5 Olan
    May 14, 2009

    Wha??????

    A,B, C engines are safe and legal in the city. Also, T engines (for tiny) are sweet and lots of fun. They’re so expensive, though, to expensive for me when I was a kid anyway – so I made my own out of sulfur, potassium nitrate (which you can actually buy from the pharmacy) and sugar… Which is not so safe. Especially when you use the old, burnt paper casings again and again….

  6. #6 oyun hilesi
    May 13, 2010

    They’re so expensive, though, to expensive for me when I was a kid anyway – so I made my own out of sulfur, potassium nitrate (which you can actually buy from the pharmacy) and sugar… Which is not so safe. Especially when you use the old, burnt paper casings again and again….

    thanks…admin