Alka Seltzer Blast-off

I was going to do this project for a long time, but just never got around to it. It's simple. It's easy and tons of fun. 

This is what we're building today.

 Simple isn't it? But it's a lot of fun to build and watch it take off.

Supplies List:

• Film canister
• Alka Seltzer tablets (cut into 1/4 pieces)
• Water
• Construction or card stock paper
• Scissors
• Adhesive tape

Let's build our rockets!

Cut a width of 1 1/2 inch to 2" strip and roll it to make a cone. It doesn't have to be perfect. When you get a cone shape, tape it. Now, cut around the bottom to make the cone sit straight up.

Tape the cone on the top of the film canister, with the opening side down.

Now, let's add the fins. You can make them any shape you want, but I went with the traditional triangular shape. This is where you can experiment with different shapes and sizes.

Tape the fins to the sides. Don't worry too much about spacing. Try to make them equidistant and put them on the opposite side of the film canister.

Hold the rocket upside-down and fill it to less than 1/4 way up the canister. It can be as little as 1/8, but you can eye ball it. And as long as it's less than 1/4, it'll work just fine.

Take the rocket outside.

Put a 1/4 piece of the Alka Seltzer tablet into the film canister.

Put the top on it securely.

Put the rocket on a flat surface and wait. 

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Waiting felt like a long time. I didn't measure the time, but I think it could be up to 45 seconds or more. My daughter got tired of waiting and tried to check on the first rocket when it went off in her hands. It hurt a little, but no real damage. 

DO NOT HANDLE THE ROCKET UNTIL IT GOES OFF. 

And it will go off eventually.

The rocket is gone.

Although waiting isn't fun, it's much better than getting hurt.

When it goes off, it's powerful and quick. Hard to catch it with your eyes.

The rocket blasted off at 7.44 seconds and flew out of the video frame at 7.58 seconds. Isn't that amazing!

I hope you have a chance to make this one.

Have a great day!

Squeeze Bottle Rockets

This is a variation on Strawkets I saw at RAFT, and I wanted to see if these would fly as well as the original Strawkets experiment I did with students a while back.

Four 6th grader classes conducted this experiment recently, and the results were conclusive - lung power wins! There's no comparison between lung power and squeeze bottle power. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures in class, so I took these pictures separately.

This is what we're building today.

List of Supplies:

• Straws, 2 kinds, one skinnier than the other (they should be able to slide easily inside of one another but not too loose)
• Facial tissue
• Index cards
• Adhesive tape
• Scissors
• Squeeze bottle
• A piece of soft foam to cover the bottle opening

All the materials are easy to find except for the squeeze bottle. I think you can find these at Target or Walmart in the travel container section.

The black piece on top of the squeeze bottle is a squishy foam with a hole in the middle for the straw. If you don't have anything like this, you can just tape over the opening, insert the straw, and tape around the straw to make sure that no air is escaping (except through the straw).

Try flying your straw rockets with the inner straw pushed all the way in & pulled out to the bendy neck of the skinnier straw. Experiment and find out which way works better.

Take a piece of tissue, twist and fold into an oval shape, and push it into one end of the straw to make it the front end of rocket. Cut pieces of an index card (try to have fun with different shapes and sizes) and attach them at the end of your rocket as tails.

These are some of the shapes I experimented with today, but in class, students are VERY creative with sizes (huge to tiny) and shapes (let your creativity explode). Have fun with them.

This is one of those experiments where I have the students yell, "Fail Spectacularly!"

So, go forth and fail spectacularly by experimenting with crazy shapes and sizes.

And always, I hope you have a lot of fun.