today we’re gonna look at a fun and easy
way to build yourself a rocket using PVC
pipe water and a soda bottle to get
started we’ll need a length of 1/2 inch
PVC pipe for 1/2 inch PVC pipe caps 3
1/2 inch tees and one piece of one and a
quarter inch pipe about 2 inches long
we’ll want a pipe cutter a saw or some
way to cut the PVC this is what we’ve
got in mind well build a frame and latch
system out of our PVC pipe fill a soda
bottle a little bit with water and then
add pressure once it’s where we want it
we pull a string and let it fly first
off just a quick test we want our soda
bottle to just barely fit over the PVC
pipe and with one half-inch PVC that’s
what it should do first up we want to
cut off a piece just over 1 foot long
I’m gonna go for about 13 inches this is
the first piece of our launch seller and
this is what’s going to fit inside of
our soda bottle which will be turned
into our rocket we now need to build a
frame and it’s gonna be sort of H shaped
with this piece coming right out of the
center of the H let’s cut 2 pieces that
are 10 inches long and 4 pieces that are
6 inches long we want to attach a tee
onto the bottom of this first piece
we’ll have two pieces coming off on
either side those will each end in a
team shape and then we’ll have arms
coming off of each of those spots with
each of those four arms covered with a
cap and with that we have the basic
frame for our rocket launcher it’s
pretty stable it doesn’t twist either
direction of course right now it’s not
held together with anything but a little
bit of friction so it does collapse will
be using glue once we’re ready though
our soda bottle which we’re gonna fill
with water once dip it down onto this
launcher about two-thirds of the way up
the bottle just mark that point that’s
about how far down we want the neck the
bottom of our bottle as a launching
mechanism we’re going to be using a
bunch of zip ties these things are
durable they’re springy and they’re
cheap which makes them great too
we want eight of these feet there’s
eight these are going to be held in
place with a pipe clamp we’re just gonna
take that and right now we’re going to
drop that down onto our pipe we want to
be able to take all eight of these zip
ties and space them just right evenly
all the way around this pipe to do that
let’s take a piece of duct tape wrap
that all the way around the pipe and
then Mark where it starts and finishes
so we can line all of our zip ties up
against the tape we’re going to leave
about three and a half inches of our zip
tie above the tape and you can see that
on one side of the zip tie the head is
just flat and on the other side it’s a
bump and we want the bump to be sticking
up towards us in the flat side to be
attached to the tape
[Music]
there we go that’s much better
we’ve got almost a perfectly even
distribution all the way around it’s
gonna be off by a little bit here and
there and that’s not a problem we just
want to try and make it as evenly spread
as we can let’s just trim off the bottom
of all eight zip ties right below our
we need our soda bottle down in place
we’ve already measured that and we want
these zip ties to be lined up so they
are right above the widest lip on our
bottle not these little bumps that are
the threads putting the cap on but this
collar around the neck we want our zip
ties to fit right above that with the
tape on there it actually doesn’t really
stick too much because there’s so many
zip ties in the way that the tape isn’t
touching PVC but that’s alright it lets
us to make sure we’ve got our alignment
just right the bottle where we want it
check the zip ties this is why we want
our hose clamp this is gonna squeeze
down and really hold all those zip tie
pieces in place there we go now our zip
ties aren’t going anywhere
you can already see that they can get a
pretty good grip on the bottle to get an
idea of how this mechanism is gonna work
our one and a quarter inch piece of PVC
pipe we can fit right down over those
zip ties when we drop our bottle down
into place and lift this portion of PVC
it holds all of the zip ties in place
they can’t move away anymore in so now
they are holding that bottle right where
we want it and even if you add a lot of
pressure pulling it up it’s not going to
go anywhere until we drop down this
color and set it loose one more thing we
do want to do is that our bottle does
fit pretty nicely right over the PVC but
it’s not a perfect fit and it doesn’t
need to be 100% perfect but we do want a
little bit tighter than it is now we’re
gonna use some electrical tape wrap it
around this PVC post and that will
create a seal that is water and air
tight or at least pretty close that will
hold while we add pressure to our bottle
with marking where all of our zip ties
reached you right now because this step
while it may not always be technically
necessary I think helps so I’m just
going to loosen our hose clamp a little
bit now that we’ve seen how these are
going to work you can drop them down out
of the way this line here represents
where our water bottleneck will reach
and so we’re going to start about
halfway over that line we’re going to
pull this electrical tape nice and tight
so it’s a very thin barrier I’m just
gonna wrap it around a few times I’m
taking the bottle and I’m pressing it
down and it’s actually just smooshing
that electrical tape and that’s just
gonna build up into sort of a ring that
ring is what’s gonna hold all the water
and compressed air back as we add
pressure into our bottle now we need to
take one of our caps and add a Schrader
valve into it that’s the same kind you
see on a bicycle tire and that’s how
we’re going to add pressure into the
whole system we’ve got a 1/2 inch drill
bit drill a hole right into one of our
caps create a valve stuck through and
now we need to pull it there we go until
it seats itself there’s a groove in the
valve and that’s what we want to sit
right along the edge of where we drilled
the hole at this point we need to take
some PVC glue and attach all of our
pieces together permanently making sure
that we have enough glue and they’re
really well attached so that no air will
leak out that glue does need to dry all
the way before we start doing any
pressure testing on it but while it’s
drying I think this is gonna be a good
time to add some decoration because we
love decoration
you know we do like decoration on all
parts of the launcher however the top
part of this post really needs to be
pretty smooth so that our bottle will
launch off and the way we want and we
don’t really want to get paint all over
all the moving parts the zip tie pieces
that are gonna be holding stuff together
so this top post will just be the color
it is we’ve also taped off the Schrader
valve because we don’t want to get that
plugged up the rest of it though let’s
make it a little more interesting
[Music]
now that everything is decorated we can
move on to adding a little bit of a
spring system now this pipe is what’s
gonna hold all of these zip ties closed
but it you know it’s gravity is
currently pointing down we want it to
stay up so that it holds our bottle
locked in place until we pull down on it
so to make that spring we’re just gonna
use a couple more zip ties we’re gonna
attach them around this tube and around
this T joint and that should give us the
spring that we need to hold it in place
it’s time for a quick test with no water
in our bottle and very low pressure this
is just to see how everything’s working
out so far it is still really low
pressure though it hasn’t even hit like
10 psi tiny delay in taking off but that
hit my hand with some good power so this
is working out nicely we’ve got this all
painted up and we need to be able to
pull this down from a little bit of a
distance so that we’re not just like
always getting soaked every time we
launch this plus it’s hard to watch it
but right here firing so we need to
attach some cord on here and make it so
we can pull from the side and have it
drop this down so we’re gonna over
engineer this just a little bit we’re
going to attach two of these eye hooks
down into the PVC and they’re gonna be
drilled and then thread it in and we’re
gonna add some epoxy just to make sure
that we keep our airtight seal through
all the pipes then we’re gonna have cord
attached to the side of the PVC coming
down through the eye hooks and
connecting in the front so when we pull
her forward we will pull down on our
trigger mechanism our launcher is now
built it should be complete and working
well so what we need now is to turn our
bottle into a rocket and there is lots
of different ways we can do that today
we’re just gonna use a little bit of
craft foam and duct tape to add a coat
on the front and some fins on the sides
I’d say that works and it’s it’s time to
start filling this with water take it
somewhere like a field instead of inside
see what it can do we’ve got our
launcher we’ve got our rocket and we’re
just gonna use some of these little
garden stakes to make sure that it holds
the launcher down and I can already pull
on this and trigger it pretty well but
you know if I pulled you hard I don’t
want it to tip and then shoot the rocket
off whatever were dangled we now want to
fill our rocket partially with water and
I say partially because it kind of ends
up being a little bit different every
time sometimes you want about one third
full sometimes one half full and we’ll
have to do some experimentation to
figure out I’m just gonna try and pop
this on as quick as I can to avoid
that worked all right now there may even
be a little bit of leaking down at the
seal and more once I start adding
pressure but it’s gonna be my Newt it
won’t be severe and it should still work
pretty well even though it’s gonna I
don’t think it’s leaking at the moment
but it probably will once I start adding
pressure just little bits trying to
escape out that seal between the water
bottle and the tape around the PVC pipe
alright let’s add some pressure and see
how this goes oh oh I think it popped
off our lock a little bit you want to
say a little bit I mean completely
because obviously it just popped right
off it may be that we just need to add
two more zip ties on the sides to give
some extra push up on this alright we’ve
got more zip ties adding pressure let’s
see if that actually increases how much
more pressure
[Music]
random fact the fastest rocket record
was set by the Atlas 5 in 2006 which
reached a top speed of 47,000 miles per
hour or about 76,000 km/h there might be
a little bit of water in the system 3 2
1 Oh almost had it so I think so far
we’ve had a lot of good launches our
best ones probably went about 100 feet
up which is not bad for a soda bottle
and some PVC powered by a bike pump we
do have one more thing we want to try
with this and that’s to see what happens
if we use a little bit more luminescent
fluid than water alright guys now it’s
night time and we have two jars full of
the two different components of glow
fluid one of which is slightly glowing
already because of a inadvertent break
in the glass as I was emptying them out
however we’ll add some fuel and we’ll
see if we can get this to launch with
glowing fuel the color of like rocket
fire flying out the back of this I hope
it works out we kind of only have one
shot because do you know how many glow
sticks you have to get for this much
liquid this is like 60 glow sticks right
here and they’re big glow sticks too
maybe more it might be as much as a
hundred I wasn’t counting too carefully
but there’s a lot and so yeah we get
about one shot with this super fancy
high quality funnel that I made out of
all right I’m gonna add soap swirl it
[Music]
three two one yeah oh that poor bike
pump at poor everything well there’s our
our spent rocket a little residual glow
fluid coming out there
I mean rocket fuel coming out there I
look great we’ve got a couple of cool
swirl patterns here I think maybe it’s
spun as it went out or something I’m not
really sure but we’ve got like a swirl
arm that that reaches around that way
and then another one coming out this
we’re actually and you can just see the
whole spray pattern everywhere the whole
project is quick it’s cheap it goes
together easily this is a great thing to
do with young kids because it’s just
water spraying out of a bottle gonna be
a lot of fun guys thanks for watching
but that’s not all we’ve got more for
you to see that box up at the top will
transport you directly to our last video
you should go check that out the other
box will show you what YouTube thinks
you should be watching next and if you
aren’t a subscriber just hit this bomb
to get in the club and that way you
never miss out on a cool video don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see
you in the next one talk to you then
way to build yourself a rocket using PVC
pipe water and a soda bottle to get
started we’ll need a length of 1/2 inch
PVC pipe for 1/2 inch PVC pipe caps 3
1/2 inch tees and one piece of one and a
quarter inch pipe about 2 inches long
we’ll want a pipe cutter a saw or some
way to cut the PVC this is what we’ve
got in mind well build a frame and latch
system out of our PVC pipe fill a soda
bottle a little bit with water and then
add pressure once it’s where we want it
we pull a string and let it fly first
off just a quick test we want our soda
bottle to just barely fit over the PVC
pipe and with one half-inch PVC that’s
what it should do first up we want to
cut off a piece just over 1 foot long
I’m gonna go for about 13 inches this is
the first piece of our launch seller and
this is what’s going to fit inside of
our soda bottle which will be turned
into our rocket we now need to build a
frame and it’s gonna be sort of H shaped
with this piece coming right out of the
center of the H let’s cut 2 pieces that
are 10 inches long and 4 pieces that are
6 inches long we want to attach a tee
onto the bottom of this first piece
we’ll have two pieces coming off on
either side those will each end in a
team shape and then we’ll have arms
coming off of each of those spots with
each of those four arms covered with a
cap and with that we have the basic
frame for our rocket launcher it’s
pretty stable it doesn’t twist either
direction of course right now it’s not
held together with anything but a little
bit of friction so it does collapse will
be using glue once we’re ready though
our soda bottle which we’re gonna fill
with water once dip it down onto this
launcher about two-thirds of the way up
the bottle just mark that point that’s
about how far down we want the neck the
bottom of our bottle as a launching
mechanism we’re going to be using a
bunch of zip ties these things are
durable they’re springy and they’re
cheap which makes them great too
we want eight of these feet there’s
eight these are going to be held in
place with a pipe clamp we’re just gonna
take that and right now we’re going to
drop that down onto our pipe we want to
be able to take all eight of these zip
ties and space them just right evenly
all the way around this pipe to do that
let’s take a piece of duct tape wrap
that all the way around the pipe and
then Mark where it starts and finishes
so we can line all of our zip ties up
against the tape we’re going to leave
about three and a half inches of our zip
tie above the tape and you can see that
on one side of the zip tie the head is
just flat and on the other side it’s a
bump and we want the bump to be sticking
up towards us in the flat side to be
attached to the tape
[Music]
there we go that’s much better
we’ve got almost a perfectly even
distribution all the way around it’s
gonna be off by a little bit here and
there and that’s not a problem we just
want to try and make it as evenly spread
as we can let’s just trim off the bottom
of all eight zip ties right below our
we need our soda bottle down in place
we’ve already measured that and we want
these zip ties to be lined up so they
are right above the widest lip on our
bottle not these little bumps that are
the threads putting the cap on but this
collar around the neck we want our zip
ties to fit right above that with the
tape on there it actually doesn’t really
stick too much because there’s so many
zip ties in the way that the tape isn’t
touching PVC but that’s alright it lets
us to make sure we’ve got our alignment
just right the bottle where we want it
check the zip ties this is why we want
our hose clamp this is gonna squeeze
down and really hold all those zip tie
pieces in place there we go now our zip
ties aren’t going anywhere
you can already see that they can get a
pretty good grip on the bottle to get an
idea of how this mechanism is gonna work
our one and a quarter inch piece of PVC
pipe we can fit right down over those
zip ties when we drop our bottle down
into place and lift this portion of PVC
it holds all of the zip ties in place
they can’t move away anymore in so now
they are holding that bottle right where
we want it and even if you add a lot of
pressure pulling it up it’s not going to
go anywhere until we drop down this
color and set it loose one more thing we
do want to do is that our bottle does
fit pretty nicely right over the PVC but
it’s not a perfect fit and it doesn’t
need to be 100% perfect but we do want a
little bit tighter than it is now we’re
gonna use some electrical tape wrap it
around this PVC post and that will
create a seal that is water and air
tight or at least pretty close that will
hold while we add pressure to our bottle
with marking where all of our zip ties
reached you right now because this step
while it may not always be technically
necessary I think helps so I’m just
going to loosen our hose clamp a little
bit now that we’ve seen how these are
going to work you can drop them down out
of the way this line here represents
where our water bottleneck will reach
and so we’re going to start about
halfway over that line we’re going to
pull this electrical tape nice and tight
so it’s a very thin barrier I’m just
gonna wrap it around a few times I’m
taking the bottle and I’m pressing it
down and it’s actually just smooshing
that electrical tape and that’s just
gonna build up into sort of a ring that
ring is what’s gonna hold all the water
and compressed air back as we add
pressure into our bottle now we need to
take one of our caps and add a Schrader
valve into it that’s the same kind you
see on a bicycle tire and that’s how
we’re going to add pressure into the
whole system we’ve got a 1/2 inch drill
bit drill a hole right into one of our
caps create a valve stuck through and
now we need to pull it there we go until
it seats itself there’s a groove in the
valve and that’s what we want to sit
right along the edge of where we drilled
the hole at this point we need to take
some PVC glue and attach all of our
pieces together permanently making sure
that we have enough glue and they’re
really well attached so that no air will
leak out that glue does need to dry all
the way before we start doing any
pressure testing on it but while it’s
drying I think this is gonna be a good
time to add some decoration because we
love decoration
you know we do like decoration on all
parts of the launcher however the top
part of this post really needs to be
pretty smooth so that our bottle will
launch off and the way we want and we
don’t really want to get paint all over
all the moving parts the zip tie pieces
that are gonna be holding stuff together
so this top post will just be the color
it is we’ve also taped off the Schrader
valve because we don’t want to get that
plugged up the rest of it though let’s
make it a little more interesting
[Music]
now that everything is decorated we can
move on to adding a little bit of a
spring system now this pipe is what’s
gonna hold all of these zip ties closed
but it you know it’s gravity is
currently pointing down we want it to
stay up so that it holds our bottle
locked in place until we pull down on it
so to make that spring we’re just gonna
use a couple more zip ties we’re gonna
attach them around this tube and around
this T joint and that should give us the
spring that we need to hold it in place
it’s time for a quick test with no water
in our bottle and very low pressure this
is just to see how everything’s working
out so far it is still really low
pressure though it hasn’t even hit like
10 psi tiny delay in taking off but that
hit my hand with some good power so this
is working out nicely we’ve got this all
painted up and we need to be able to
pull this down from a little bit of a
distance so that we’re not just like
always getting soaked every time we
launch this plus it’s hard to watch it
but right here firing so we need to
attach some cord on here and make it so
we can pull from the side and have it
drop this down so we’re gonna over
engineer this just a little bit we’re
going to attach two of these eye hooks
down into the PVC and they’re gonna be
drilled and then thread it in and we’re
gonna add some epoxy just to make sure
that we keep our airtight seal through
all the pipes then we’re gonna have cord
attached to the side of the PVC coming
down through the eye hooks and
connecting in the front so when we pull
her forward we will pull down on our
trigger mechanism our launcher is now
built it should be complete and working
well so what we need now is to turn our
bottle into a rocket and there is lots
of different ways we can do that today
we’re just gonna use a little bit of
craft foam and duct tape to add a coat
on the front and some fins on the sides
I’d say that works and it’s it’s time to
start filling this with water take it
somewhere like a field instead of inside
see what it can do we’ve got our
launcher we’ve got our rocket and we’re
just gonna use some of these little
garden stakes to make sure that it holds
the launcher down and I can already pull
on this and trigger it pretty well but
you know if I pulled you hard I don’t
want it to tip and then shoot the rocket
off whatever were dangled we now want to
fill our rocket partially with water and
I say partially because it kind of ends
up being a little bit different every
time sometimes you want about one third
full sometimes one half full and we’ll
have to do some experimentation to
figure out I’m just gonna try and pop
this on as quick as I can to avoid
that worked all right now there may even
be a little bit of leaking down at the
seal and more once I start adding
pressure but it’s gonna be my Newt it
won’t be severe and it should still work
pretty well even though it’s gonna I
don’t think it’s leaking at the moment
but it probably will once I start adding
pressure just little bits trying to
escape out that seal between the water
bottle and the tape around the PVC pipe
alright let’s add some pressure and see
how this goes oh oh I think it popped
off our lock a little bit you want to
say a little bit I mean completely
because obviously it just popped right
off it may be that we just need to add
two more zip ties on the sides to give
some extra push up on this alright we’ve
got more zip ties adding pressure let’s
see if that actually increases how much
more pressure
[Music]
random fact the fastest rocket record
was set by the Atlas 5 in 2006 which
reached a top speed of 47,000 miles per
hour or about 76,000 km/h there might be
a little bit of water in the system 3 2
1 Oh almost had it so I think so far
we’ve had a lot of good launches our
best ones probably went about 100 feet
up which is not bad for a soda bottle
and some PVC powered by a bike pump we
do have one more thing we want to try
with this and that’s to see what happens
if we use a little bit more luminescent
fluid than water alright guys now it’s
night time and we have two jars full of
the two different components of glow
fluid one of which is slightly glowing
already because of a inadvertent break
in the glass as I was emptying them out
however we’ll add some fuel and we’ll
see if we can get this to launch with
glowing fuel the color of like rocket
fire flying out the back of this I hope
it works out we kind of only have one
shot because do you know how many glow
sticks you have to get for this much
liquid this is like 60 glow sticks right
here and they’re big glow sticks too
maybe more it might be as much as a
hundred I wasn’t counting too carefully
but there’s a lot and so yeah we get
about one shot with this super fancy
high quality funnel that I made out of
all right I’m gonna add soap swirl it
[Music]
three two one yeah oh that poor bike
pump at poor everything well there’s our
our spent rocket a little residual glow
fluid coming out there
I mean rocket fuel coming out there I
look great we’ve got a couple of cool
swirl patterns here I think maybe it’s
spun as it went out or something I’m not
really sure but we’ve got like a swirl
arm that that reaches around that way
and then another one coming out this
we’re actually and you can just see the
whole spray pattern everywhere the whole
project is quick it’s cheap it goes
together easily this is a great thing to
do with young kids because it’s just
water spraying out of a bottle gonna be
a lot of fun guys thanks for watching
but that’s not all we’ve got more for
you to see that box up at the top will
transport you directly to our last video
you should go check that out the other
box will show you what YouTube thinks
you should be watching next and if you
aren’t a subscriber just hit this bomb
to get in the club and that way you
never miss out on a cool video don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see
you in the next one talk to you then
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