This demonstration is always a bit unpredictable…. It shot about 100 feet into the air.
(update: I posted a Baking Soda & Vinegar video… It was my first rocket launch…. )
13 responses to “Baking Soda & Vinegar”
-
A messy rocket… how big was it? How much vinegar and baking soda did it require?
-
Peural: both. Everyday is like Halloween.
Rocketeer: Messy? oh yes. Vinegar bath for me and my photographer friend. It’s about 2 ft. tall with a 1/2 liter PET bottle as the pressure chamber. There is a rubber cork tightened with a wing nut to hold in the pressure until it reaches a high level, and it all shoots out the back leaving a big plume of white froth. It was about 1.5 cups of vinegar and 4 tablespoons of baking soda (I did not measure them). On this launch the entire upper half of the rocket shattered upon landing nose first… and it landed right behind me with a thud.
Here is a daytime sequence of three frames from a funny videotape. I never seem to "get away" in time….
-
When I was around 10 or 11, I made my own rockets with a bottle of alcohol and a book of matches. I’d take an ice pick to the metal lid of an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, then pour a little alcohol back into the bottle, put the lid on, cover the hole with my thumb as I shook the contents (creating an air/fuel mixture) and then lay it down as I put a match to the end of the pierced metal cap. Sometimes I’d have to ever so slightly squeeze some air/fuel mixture out and let it suck back in the ignition, but once it caught, it’d take off and burn for several seconds. Eventually, "plastic fatigue" combined with heat would get to the container and I’d have to get a new container. It worked well because the alcohol didn’t burn extremely quickly, but fast enough to provide a constant thrust for several seconds. I always shot mine horizontally, though…. never got around to taping fins to it and launching vertically.
-
That reminds me of when I was a teenager and launched Estes rockets back at the old farm. I had this plastic toy Mustang car and with a Weller soldering gun with a blade attachement, I cut out a hole in the back for a "D" engine. I then put screw eyes underneath to insert a guide string, then made a vertical fin out of a plastic ice cream bucket lid and mounted it on the car’s back. Made a front spoiler too.
The first launch was on a paved highway near the house. No sting. And no ride! At least not horizontally. The car went forward 20 ft, then straight up for 30. Came crashing down. We shit in our pants. You can be sure I put a guide string the next time.
We made up to half a dozen launches with the old Mustang toy rocket car. With a string over 400 ft long on paved highway, it reached speeds of 160 MPH (we timed it and made calculations). Wish we had a radar gun though. Made lots of smoke. Very cool.
I have a photo of it during a launch somewhere .
-
Awesome story!!! It sounds so familiar. I built a rocket car last year (from the remains of a two-stage rocket that I jerry-rigged into a three stage and had the most spectacular mid air loop… until the 3rd stage kicked in and drilled it into the ground). I salvaged the nose cone, some body tube and two fins and epoxy’d it to the jacked-up 4-wheel chassis from a Matchbox “Scooby Do” car (metal body removed).
First launch was with no guide wire, and I had a digital video camera on the ground so I could go back and figure out what happened with a frame-by-frame analysis. First frame: engine ignites. Second frame: nose dips. Third frame: it’s flipping. Fourth frame: it’s coming at me. Then it was out of the video as it made huge arc in the sky and landed across the street in our yard. The soundtrack of utterances was precious.
So I built a wooden stand so that I could use the Estes launch rod horizontally, and get the rocket going straight as it accelerates.
The next video looked great…. until it left the rod, and then it was pretty much a repeat of the first experience. I think I need a longer wheel base. So, that’s on hold, and I’m focusing on multi-engine vertical launches for now…
But, now you inspire me with the string idea… Drawn taut I presume?
You can get digital altimeters/speedometers for rockets now…. Some of the Nevada launches get to Mach 2 (they use a military base with clearances to go to 100K feet altitudes).
-
Ever make a rocket plane? or one that goes in a screw (helix)? or a chaos rocket?
-
I posted a somewhat more humorous Baking Soda & Vinegar video… It was my first rocket launch…. 😉
Leave a Reply to jurvetson Cancel reply