Water Rocket Launcher

[Nothing Special]

No where close to a firecracker.  It's not like your ears are ringing after a launch.  But now that I need to listen to a high-pitched whine all of the time I'm a little more conservative, especially when it comes to kids ears (remember cap guns?  and how fun it was to hit a whole roll of caps with a hammer?)

By the way, I dug up a 14 year old picture of us using my bottle launcher.  This was at a Boy Scout campout with no mothers, and evidently I forgot to bring safety glasses and ear muffs.  You can see that I'm not plugging my ears as a water-filled bottle was launched, but I am wincing.  And for what it's worth, my older son is in the orange shirt (he just released the rocket), my younger son is in the red shirt in the background (he was working on earning his Tot'n Chip or something much more important than playing with rockets) and my '95 F-150 SCSB is right behind the group of kids, providing the compressed air for the launcher.  My "kids" are now 26 and 24, and I'm 3 trucks beyond that F-150 now.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Yeah, I'm that 'bad' influence too.

I used to take my older niece (she's 35 w/ 3 kids now) out on my motorcycles, bringing her to the pistol range when she was single digits, showed (and had her try) to arc weld, going into the pits at Englishtown (drag races) because I had a laminate.
You know... all that off limits stuff

[ArdWrknTrk]

Looks like Great Fun was had by all!  

[Gary Lewis]

Jim - I'm not sure their mother would approve of them learning to shoot any of my guns, and I'm no where near ready to trust them with one.  YET.  

Motorcycles?  Don't have one to put them on, but our son just told Janey two nights ago as we were talking about the TAT, that Honda is making effectively a new Trail 125.  So......

Bob - That's a cool pic!  I'll bet those guys remember that weekend well.  

Ear muffs?  Safety glasses?  Not in my plans for the boat.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I bought my MK-II 5 1/2" bull barrel specifically so Steph could have a gun to shoot bullseye.
(At first from a rest, because she couldn't hold it up!  😉)

Her mother didn't like any of it, but she got valuable lessons, and always with a teaching moment behind them.

We had muffs and safety glasses at the range and in the pits.
Helmet, jacket and gloves on the bike.

[Dorsai]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Great post, with lots of real world information!  

I'd bet Matthew has done this with his boy scout troop a bunch of times too.

I haven't done it at the Boy Scout level, but back in Cub Scouts we did a lot of rocketry.  We did the 2 liter water rockets as well as Estes rockets...the water rockets mostly came out at our annual recruitment meeting, and the Estes ones later in the year for our annual summer banquet.

In fact, I still have my rockets and my son's rockets here in my office...

[Ray Cecil]

Speaking of rockets...man I was bummed last night when they scrubbed the Spacex launch. One day I am going to watch a rocket launch.

[ArdWrknTrk]

4:18 in the afternoon???

You are going to watch *and FEEL* a rocket launch!

If the Florida weather keeps up they will scrub again.
You can't control Mother Nature.

But Space-X has a good track record and it keeps getting better.

[Gary Lewis]

You guys ok with me moving the rocket discussion, which I probably started, to a Projects page?  I'll want to add pics of what we build, the builders, the flights, etc and it seems like it should have its own thread.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Stuff it with the other rocket talk (from Corys thread) in the lounge...

Or 86 it entirely... IDK

[ArdWrknTrk]

It would be fun to see pics of your grandkids making and launching rockets, if your daughter and SIL are ok with it.

[Gary Lewis]

That's why I was thinking something in Projects.  I'll create the new project and move these there and we'll see what Holly says about pics.

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, as you can see I've moved a bunch of our rocket discussion to the project thread.

And, we may have a "go".  Granddaughter Facetimed today and in the course of the conversation said "Do you know they are supposed to send the guys into space tomorrow?"  I said "Yep!  And would you like to build rockets?"  To which she smiled and said "YES!"

So I started showing her the plans, and she said "Wait" and got her twin brother so he could see.  We were well into it when their mother/our daughter walked in - and smiled that her kids were so thrilled.

So, we have a "go"!  They get here tomorrow so I'm out cleaning the shop so we'll have a place to work.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Please make time for them to (hopefully) see the launch.

I can remember being the one (av geek) to push the TV cart into class so we could watch in school.

[Gary Lewis]

I wish I could.  But they'll be driving up here from Houston at that time.  Perhaps they can watch it on their mother's phone.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Perhaps you can DVR it for them?

[Gary Lewis]

Good idea.  I'll do that.