How To Make A Great Bottle Rocket Designed For Distance

On top of being just plain fun, a bottle rocket project can help you learn useful building skills and scientific concepts. The long-distance bottle rocket shown here, though inexpensive and simple to make, is designed for long-distance flight. After building and testing the rocket, you may want to experiment with changes to the number of fins, their angle, the shape of the nose or other features.

Step 1

Empty the bottles and rinse them out. Leaving the cap off, put one of the 2-liter bottles in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Step 2

Have the cap in hand. Remove the two-liter bottle from the freezer and immediately put the cap on as tight as you can. (The cold air will warm and expand. When hot-gluing to the bottle, it won't deform as much.)

Step 3

Take the 2-liter bottle that was in the freezer, and hot-glue the bottom of the 16-oz. bottle to the bottom of the 2-liter bottle. Use enough glue so that the two bottles become inseparable. Keep the bottles straight.

Step 4

Take the dowel rod and fill the top of one end with as much hot glue as it will hold.

Step 5

Turn it upside-down, and place it inside the 16-oz. bottle. Applying a little pressure, hold the rod as straight as possible until the glue hardens.

Step 6

Fill the mouth of the 16-oz. bottle–that the dowel rod is now sticking through–with hot glue. Keep the dowel rod straight.

Step 7

With the basic structure in place, it's time to streamline the rocket. Take the other 2-liter bottle and cut the top off. The circumference of the top circle of the cutout should be the circumference of the 16-oz. bottle. The circumference of the bottom circle of the cutout should be the circumference of the 2-liter bottle. The bottom circle's circumference should extend about 1 1/2".

Step 8

Slide the cutout down the dowel rod and over the 16 oz. bottle. Secure it in place with dabs of hot glue around the circumference of the top and bottom of the cutout.

Step 9

Take a piece of construction paper, and cut it in half.

Step 10

Wrap it around the point where the top of the 16-oz. bottle meets the dowel rod. You should end up with the shape of a cone.

Step 11

Secure the cone in place with tape.

Step 12

Stack the pennies and wrap a piece of tape around their circumference so they don't move. Secure the pennies to the top of the dowel rod by hot-gluing the bottom of the pennies to the top of the dowel rod. Wrap a piece of tape around the pennies and dowel rod to ensure they don't move.

Step 13

Take the construction paper. Cut out a small 3x3 inch piece. Wrap this into a cone.

Step 14

Wrap a piece of tape around the cone.

Step 15

Cut the bottom of the cone off so the bottom circumference is the same as the circumference of a penny.

Step 16

Place the cone on top of the pennies.

Step 17

Secure the cone in place by hot-gluing around the circumference of the bottom of the cone.

Step 18

The easy part is done. Now it's time for the hard part–the fins. Take the canvas board and draw one trapezoid measuring 2 3/8" on one of the parallel sides, 2 3/4" on the other parallel side, 2" on one non-parallel side, and 1 5/8" on the last side. The numbers don't have to be exact, but try to keep the general shape.

Step 19

Cut the trapezoid out. (You may find it easier to put the ruler along the drawn lines and use a razor blade to cut with.)

Step 20

Trace the trapezoid four times on four different locations of the canvas board and cut them out as well.

Step 21

Find a piece of furniture–a desk is perfect. Measure 6 1/8" from the floor and place a piece of tape at that location to mark the spot. Tape the marker at that location. It's very important that the marker is secure. Have another person hold the marker in place (in addition to taping it) if necessary.

Step 22

Position the rocket so that the cap is touching the ground.

Step 23

Move the rocket over to the marker so that the rocket just barely touches the tip of the marker. Keeping the rocket level, slowly rotate the rocket 360 degrees until a horizontal line is drawn around the circumference of the rocket.

Step 24

Take the string, and tape the very tip of it to the bottle. Keeping the string horizontal, wrap it all the way around and then some.

Step 25

Make a mark on the string where it has wrapped once around the bottle. This gives you the bottle's circumference so that fins can be equally spaced around the rocket.

Step 26

Remove the string from the bottle. Measure the length from the end of the string to mark. Divide this number by five.

Step 27

Measure from the end of the string to the number you got, and make a mark on the string with the permanent marker. Try to make the mark thin for the most accuracy.

Step 28

Measure from the end of the string to the number you got multiplied by two, and make a mark on the string.

Step 29

Measure from the end of the string to the number you got multiplied by three, and make a mark on the string.

Step 30

Measure from the end of the string to the number you got multiplied by four, and make a mark on the string.

Step 31

Wrap the string around the horizontal line on the bottle.

Step 32

Make vertical tic marks on the bottle below each mark you find on the string.

Step 33

Slide the string straight up to around the middle of the bottle.

Step 34

Make vertical tic marks on the bottle below each mark you find on the string.

Step 35

Use the ruler to connect the marks. Draw a vertical line along the edge of the ruler. Continue to draw the vertical line below the horizontal line to the point where the bottle begins to curve.

Step 36

Take one of the fins and place it so that the top of it (where the 2" and 2 3/4" edges meet) is touching the bottom of the horizontal line.

Step 37

Hot-glue the fin in place by adding tiny dots along a single edge of the fin. Allow these to cool a bit before adding dots along the other side. Work slowly so the bottle doesn't deform as much. Don't worry if part of the fin overhangs the bottle. This just means you need to add more hot glue to the part that touches.

Step 38

Keeping the fin straight with the vertical line, slowly fill out the spaces between the dots. It's difficult to add too much glue when securing the fins. It's very important that they are rigid during launch and flight. Repeat this process with the next four fins. (To save time, you can start work on the second fin once you no longer have to hold the first fin in place. Once you no longer have to hold the second fin in place, go back to the first one and fill it out.

Step 39

Remove the cap.

Step 40

Your rocket is ready for flight! If you want, decorate your rocket just for fun.