Rubber Band Powered Roctet

I made this rocket in my spare time. it goes over ten meters high and uses gyroscopic stabilisation to go straight. I hope you enjoy making this, see how high you can make it go, experiment, have fun.

Tools

• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun
• Pocket Knife With Saw
• Hammer

Materials

• 1/2" pvc pipe at least 24cm long
• Cardboard
• Tape
• Two Bamboo Sticks 24cm Long
• One Bamboo Stick 8cm Long
• Sixty-One Rubber Bands
• Short piece of string
• One 2.5m Pole
• One 8cm Nail

All bamboo sticks are replaceable with normal sticks.

Cut out a rectangle of cardboard 24cm long and 8cm wide, make sure the longest side follows the grains. Then use the pvc pipe and roll it our till it's flat and flexible.

Wrap the cardboard around the pvc pipe and tape it into place.

Take the cardboard tube you just made, leave it on the pvc pipe. Take the two bamboo sticks and tape them to each side of the tube, then wrap the whole tube in tape.

Cut a piece of cardboard 12cm wide and 20cm long. Flatten this and make it flexible, then roll it up to make a solid tube. Make it so it fits loosely into the body of your rocket, then wrap it in tape.

Cut a slit in the nose body using your pocket knife saw leaving 3cm on each end not cut.

Take the short bamboo stick and wrap the middle in a layer of tape, but leave the ends open, then cut a little notch 1cm away from an end. This is your hook.

Make two holes in the body on each side with a 3cm height difference, the highest one being about a 1.5cm from the top. If you put the hook in the holes it should be on a sharp angle.

Cut out four triangles with a height of 7cm and a base width of 5cm.

Cut out a rough circle of cardboard with a diameter of 10cm, cut off 3/5 of the circle, fold the remaining piece into a cone and tape it into place. Put it on the nose body and cut it down so it has a diameter just bigger than the diameter of the nose body. Take it off the nose body and fill it with hot glue.

Now you should have:

• one rocket body
• one nose body
• one nose
• one hook
• four fins

You will also need one rubber band for the next step.

Take the four fins and use hot glue to glue them to the base of the rocket body, take care to attach them all on a slight angle to the right, this will make it spin thus making a gyroscopic force that makes it go straight.

Take the nose and glue it to one end of the nose body.

Take the nose body, the rocket body, the hook, and a rubber band, put the rubber band around bottom of the nose body that the nose isn't glued to, hold both ends of the rubber band and stick the nose body into the rocket body making sure the slit and the holes you made earlier are lined up, stick the hook through one hole through the slit and out the other hole, make sure the notch in the hook is on the bottom side on the side of the rocket that the hook sticks up. Take the two rubber band ends and put them over the hook, make sure the one end is in the notch in the hook. If you push the nose in it should pop out again if not make the nose body thinner, if so then glue both ends of the hook with hot glue. Your rocket is now done.

Take 60 rubber bands and make 6 chains 10 rubber bands long. Loop the string through one end of all the rubber band chains, then tie it in a loop.

Take your pole and nail and put the nail in to one end of the pole leaving 4cm poking out of the pole, stick the other end of the pole into the ground in a clear open area.

Take your rubber band chains and rocket out to your launch site. Loop the loop of your string over the nail and pull the rubber bands down, loop the ends of all the rubber band chains around the side of the hook pointing down, pull the rocket down to the ground then hold it from the very bottom of the rocket and let it go!

If your rocket does not spin on launch make sure that all your fins are on an angle in the same direction.