Falcon 1 – Coke Bottle Rocket

Brennan and I completed our first science project of the year – Falcon 1.  This one demonstrated Newton’s Third Law which says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think he understood a little bit because he said that as I filled it up, the air went in which force the water out and the bottle to fly. This is close enough for a 5 year old.

It took us about 30 minutes to make and takes very few things:

• a champagne cork – clearly we had one since it is 1/1/09
• serrated blade
• a 2L coke bottle
• transparent duct tape
• a valve stem
• Bicycle Foot Pump

If you have all of that, you’re set.  You can find the corks, serrated blade and duct tape at Lowe’s.  I went down to the local tire store and asked for the valve stems – the store gave them to me for free.

Instructions:

1. Remove the label from the coke bottle
2. Wrap the bottle with duct tape to reinforce the bottle in case of nicks / scrapes
3. Write something really cool on the tape with a Sharpie – perhaps “In honor of Falcon 1″
4. Cut off the bottle top ring with the serrated blade.
5. Trim the head of the champagne cork
6. Test the cork to make it sure it is close to fitting. This will be trimmed later.
7. Drill a hole which is slightly smaller than your valve stem to fit the style of valve stem you have.
8. Test that the valve stem fits into you hole.
9. At this point putting the valve stem into the hole has expanded the size of the cork.  You will need to test / trim the cork until it fits.  Be careful not to cut off too much or you will need to drink another bottle of champagne – or darn.
10. Once it fits in the bottle, take it out and fill the bottle 1/3 full with water.
11. Assemble a launch pad out of whatever you have. I used a bag of fertilizer and some paint cans. Ha!
12. Attach the bike pump to valve stem.
13. Pump up the bottle and watch it fly after about five pumps or so.

I have save the maiden voyages of Falcon 1 on YouTube.com – Falcon 1.

Enjoy!

Dana