Bike-pump-powered bottle rockets are a great engineering project for kids. There’s the science behind forces, pressure, and aerodynamics; there’s the iterative engineering of trying to create a rocket that can go the furthest; and there’s simply the fun of being outside blasting bottles hundreds of feet into the sky.
At East End House, the rockets unit includes making straw rockets, DIY stomp rockets, and bottle rockets. In each of them, the kids iterate to improve their designs. And although we use recycled soda bottles, I always ensure that we’re “short” two or three bottles, necessitating emptying a few extra using a mentos and diet coke reaction…
