Go Green! Plastic Bottle Rockets

by 2001warrior

11K714

Intro: Go Green! Plastic Bottle Rockets

Are you constantly finding that you have an urge to blow something up, but you want to save the planet at the same time? Look no further! Throw together your own Go Green! Plastic Bottle Rocket! 5 Minutes of work, endless hours of entertaining kids and drunk people!

STEP 1: Materials

Materials
  • A plastic bottle with top
  • Water; optional

Tools
  • Air compressor with air nozzle
  • Drill
  • We found a vice to be very helpful

STEP 2: Making the Rocket

1. Drill a hole through the top. Your hole should be big enough for you to be able to stick your air compressor's nozzle through it. We used a vice to hold the bottle in place while we drilled in the hole.

2. Set your air compressor anywhere between 80-100 psi. Anything more than 100, and you're flirting with danger in the form of exploding plastic.

STEP 3: Launch!

Slide the bottle onto the nozzle, press the trigger lighty to fill it up, give it a quick SQUEEZE, and...
KABOOM!
Hey! Videos!






14 Comments

Matt9 15 years ago

I suggest maybe to add a little weight so it goes further

mettaurlover 15 years ago

i use plastic soda bottles, two liter, covered in duct tape at the stress points, and use two air compressers to fire it. dented drywall.

Biopyro 15 years ago

USE FIZZY DRINKS BOTTLES! They are rated to around 150psi, and will definately not explode. Bottles with still liquids (which often expand when pressurised past 10psi) can explode at anything above 80 with a sharp knock or just from being used repeatedly!

Chewy1993 15 years ago

another cool trick is to use the 'greener' Deer Park bottles(when empty), twist it, and quickly unscrew the cap. The cap flies 20 feet or so. Also, you can see water vapor from the quick decompression!

Gjdj3 15 years ago

Pretty cool and a good way to reuse all of those old water bottles. Nice job you guys.

joejoerowley 16 years ago

Great Instructable! Nice videos also! Just a quick question how do you do the little icon next to the '"A plastic bottle with top" Thanks

Labot2001 16 years ago

Type in an asterisk (*) followed by a space and then text for a bullet point =]

Weissensteinburg 16 years ago

Any chance you could take a video in the daylight? It's hard to see the rocket on that first one.

Labot2001 16 years ago

We can try. Right now's not good; the weather outside is absolutely terrible. Maybe tomorrow, though =]

Labot2001 16 years ago

*sigh*

Thanks, we know.... It started doing that about 5 minutes after we got it published! We're assuming it's something with YouTube; gonna be checking back every now and then, and if nothing happens, I'll post from another video-hosting site.

BTW, have you any idea how to embed a video from [www.vimeo.com vimeo]?