Picture of 2 Liter Rocket
Looking for something exciting to do? Try building a water powered rocket out of a 2 liter soda bottle. This can be completed in less than half an hour with simple household materials.

   1 Two liter bottle
   Card stock although construction paper will work
   1 Cork
   1 Schrader needle

   Excato Knife
   Bike pump
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Step 1: The Cone

Picture of The Cone
To form the cone simply fold over the corner of a sheet of card stock or construction paper and continue rolling until you get a cone with a base that is the diameter of the bottom of the soda bottle.

Tape the base of the cone to the rocket using as little tape as possible and a strip of tape running up from the base of the cone to the tip where the paper ends.

Step 2: The Fins

Picture of The Fins
To make the fins take a piece of cardboard and cut out 4 equal fins. The fins should be about 2 inches wide at the base and 8 inches high. I only ended up using 3 fins and kept the 4th as a spare.

Attach the fins with about an inch long strip of tape on each side at the top of the fins to the point just above where the bottle starts to curve inwards. Seen picture 3 below. One way to help space the fins out equally is to take a piece of paper and wrap it around the circumference of the bottle then take it off and fold it into thirds, marking each third. Then put it back around the bottle and mark each point.

Step 3: The Cork Stopper

Picture of The Cork Stopper
Take a cork and stick it into the soda bottle's opening to make sure that it fits in snugly. Then cut it down to appropriate height so that the Schrader needle is longer than the cork as seen in the below photo.

Step 4: Filling With Water

Picture of Filling With Water
I suggest filling about 10% with water, although, you can experiment and find what you think works best.
altomic3 years ago
i saw a contest on Japanese TV which was a bottle rocket contest based entirely on distance achieved.

the winner was a multistage rocket as made here. it had launching tracks and went about 500 feet.

arothschild3 years ago
This looks really fun! Good project for holiday break!
TheGeek19843 years ago
For a school science class we made these. I never got to see mine go up though. It went the highest from what I was told, but I wasn't in school that day because unfortunately the night before was my grandfather's memorial service and my mom turned off my brother's and my alarm clock. She didn't want to make us go to school the following day, she thought it would be too hard. Anyway, my science teacher was also the photography teacher, and even though she set my rocket aside so I could see it fly, her photography students threw it out. I've been meaning to make another, but didn't have any way to get it in the air.