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.

LEGO Technic Build (Mechanisms) - Page 142, Build #182

I am a lover of LEGO, and I bought a book, The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book by Yoshihito Isogawa last fall.

Initially, I thought I'd use the book to build with my daughter and nephews. However, I soon realized that even though my daughter and nephews are advanced LEGO builders for their age, they were still having some problems building the more sophisticated machines and mechanism because there were only a few photos accompanying each build.

So, I decided to put together these step-by-step building process for my nephews who live farther away than I like. So, this was the genesis for Building my way through a LEGO Power Functions Book section in my blog.

I'm going to build the machines and mechanisms that are visually interesting, and I'm going to skip around the book. So, I will note the page # as well as the build # in the book on each blog.

Today, I'm going to build a cam mechanism.

So, what is a cam?

A cam is a rotating machine, which transfers a oscillating or reciprocating motion to another part known as a follower. A really good example of a cam is a car engine.

I'm building this today.

Pieces I'm going to use today.

I bought two tubs of technic parts, and I didn't have a particular piece used in the book. So, I chose a piece that came close to it and used it.

A follower is already done.

A follower taken apart.

Building the cam.

Attachments to attach the gears.

Gears attached with the follower on top. Cam pieces off to the side.

Cam pieces attached.

My power functions set came from a $99 LEGO Technic set, but you can purchase a similar power functions set for ~$30.

A short video of the cam working. Enjoy!