busLet's take a good look at Newton's Laws in motion while making something that flies off in both directions. This experiment will pop a cork out of a bottle and make the cork fly go 20 to 30 feet, while the vehicle moves in the other direction!

This is an outdoor experiment. Be careful with this, as the cork comes out with a good amount of force. (Don’t point it at anyone or anything, even yourself!)

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27 Responses to “Rocket Car”

  1. emilyannejon says:

    DO IT OUTSIDE!!! XD
    😉

  3. Kristen Smith says:

    Luke’s (8) Observation notes: It was a Booooooom!!!!!!!!!! It was so amazeing!!!!!! It acelarated alot quick!!!! The car BLASTED forwherd. The cap BOOMED out of the botle! And the second time we lost [the cork]……..

    We didn’t use the paper towel. We used a 20oz pop bottle, with no neck to speak of. Wrapping the baking soda in a paper towel ball probably would’ve worked, but we didn’t read that tip until after! We duct taped the outside end of the cork, made sure it fit, and then just sprinkled baking soda in with our fingers, put the cork on fast, shook it and let it go! Putting the cork on FAST is a key part using this method; a slow cork gave us a few duds. But Wow! What an awesome experiment. I think we’re going to have some rocket car races this weekend!

  4. What specifically happened or didn’t happen that you expected?

  5. Regina Woodley says:

    It did not work!!!

  7. Dan Archer says:

    do you have a video

  8. laurie jensen says:

    We found a better way to add baking soda. Pour a line on baking soda along the middle of the paper towel and roll it up longways. (like a snake) .Stuff it through the neck of the bottle. Make sure it is skinny enough to fit through the neck. Put the bottle in the ground then quickly put the cork on. You may need to jiggle a little to mix it. It works great if you have a tight seal. Don’t stand behind the bottle that coke flies off! Our car did not move but we didn’t care.

  9. Thanks so much for your kind and happy feedback! I am so glad you’ve found us and you’re enjoying the material. 🙂

    As for stoppers, a great inventor/scientist might take that cork and look at it carefully, and think about how they could make it air-tight. I might try wrapping it with masking tape, using part of a rubber balloon, or other materials that might help turn it into something that will make a good seal with the bottle. Part of your job is to encourage them to use what they have to modify something to make it work right. Science doesn’t always work perfectly (especially the first time), which is why science kits off the shelf with those perfectly cut little plastic pieces are so misleading! They get kids into the habit of thinking that if it doesn’t work the first time, to just give up at the first signs of frustration… which as you know isn’t how you achieve any goal in life that is worth going after.

    For finding the actual piece (and others that you may have to get if you can’t figure out a substitute) here’s a listing for suppliers in your area:

    http://www.austscientific.com.au/
    http://www.westlab.com.au/
    http://www.johnmorris.com.au/home.aspx
    http://labsupply.com.au/
    http://shop.omegascientific.com.au/
    http://www.homeschooling.com.au/
    http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/home_education/resource_list.htm

    Hope this helps!
    Aurora

  10. Hi Aurora

    Thanks for such great material – it has transformed my children’s (boys 7, 9, 11, 13 years) view of science.

    We first tried the Homeschool Science Activity & Video Guide – Flying Contraption. Part way through the experiment (after the initial “Whoa! That’s awesome!” reaction), one of the boys said “ This is great Mum! Can we take this stuff on holiday?” (to the beach in a couple of weeks’ time)! I knew we were onto a winner with a comment like that.

    The Slingshot Rockets were also very popular, and they spent hours up on the oval behind our house, discovering the effect of wind interference on paper rockets, as it was a particularly windy day! I love the fact that a 15 minute science lesson at the end of the day continued spontaneously for another three hours of experimentation and development!

    A question: We live in Queensland, Australia, so I am trying to source materials for experiments here. I’m just wondering if you could suggest where I could find neoprene stoppers, as the children are keen to try the Rocket Car. We could try with a cork, but you mentioned that they didn’t form a tight enough seal with the bottle. I’m not sure what sort of suppliers or businesses use such things so I don’t know where to start looking.

    Looking forward to the webinar early tomorrow morning (our time).

    Thanks, Anna
    Queensland, Australia

  12. Lynn Glasheen says:

    Could you please make a video for this experiment?

    -Jack

  13. Sounds like you didn’t generate enough pressure to pop the cork. Try doubling or tripling the reactants and try again. Did you see a reaction going in inside the bottle?

  14. Sue Conner says:

    I tried it, and it didn’t even pop! did I do something wrong?

  15. Laura Amon says:

    Can we use the sports-type lid of a plastic water bottle instead of a cork? (The type of lids that you pull up to “open” to get a drink.) Maybe this type of lid won’t leave enough room for air to explode out the “rocket” to make it go.

    Thanks,
    Laura

  16. The main idea is to slow down the start of the reaction so you have time to stick it in the bottle since the reaction starts as soon as the liquid vinegar hits the powdered baking soda. If you wrap the baking soda in the paper towel, you will have time to shove it in the bottle before it starts to react. Does that help?

  17. gail olson says:

    I am having a hard time understanding the instructions. Do we pour the baking soda on top of the paper towel? How much? If the paper towel goes to the lid I don’t see any room to put the soda. What do we fill the bottle with? I put vinegar in but the instructions say to fill the bottle. Please help. Thanks

  18. Oops – my mistake! We have two rocket car activities available – I thought you were referring to this rocket car… sorry about that! Yes, alka-seltzer is the way to go with this project. Shove the cork on more tightly or wrap it a couple times with duct tape to help seal up the holes.

  19. sharon Parry says:

    WE used Alka-Seltzer. Hyrum did say he heard a slight hissing sound. We will try it again.

  20. Sounds like you may have an air leak. When you fill the car, do you hear a slight hissing anywhere around the nozzle?

    How did you use the seltzer (was it a tablet like alka-seltzer, or seltzer water)? In this experiment I only used air from a bike pump.

  21. sharon Parry says:

    We couldn’t make it work. I wonder what we did wrong. We had a 2 liter bottle. We tried just a little water and then filled it up. We tried one seltzer and then we tried many. We tried the vinegar- one inc with the soda. Nothing happened. What did we do wrong?

  22. melissa wzorek says:

    Also, we used rubber bands instead of duct tape to hold the bottle in place. It made for faster changes between cars and it doesn’t matter if they get wet. Hope that helps someone. My boys had a blast with these!

  23. melissa wzorek says:

    We had the best luck with a plastic Steak House bottle; think A-1 sauce. We also used Crayola Model Magic Clay instead of the paper towel, since the kids (and I) found getting the paper towel just right frustrating. Now that I am thinking about it, we probably were putting the paper towel in wrong.

  24. You’ll want to use a lightweight car that rolls easily. What happens if you float it on a piece of foam in the bathtub?

  25. Missy Meskell says:

    We tried the Rocket Car but to no avail = (

    Nathan

  26. Wow – awesome! Yes, it’s tricky to match up the corks with the bottles – and the tape-wrapping is also a great idea. And the hardware stores (the old fashioned Mom & Pop kind, not the super-mega Home Depot kinds) will usually stock a selection of stoppers (either cork or neoprene). Bring your bottle with you to match it up. Of course you can always use a M&M container when you’re out of film canisters. So glad to hear you’re doing REAL science – taking data, etc! You can post pictures to the Photo Album, too! 🙂

  27. Karen Frederick says:

    We had a great deal of trouble with this experiment as we just didn’t seem to have a bottle of any sort to match the size corks we had. We tried taping, etc. to no avail. But wow – we had GREAT fun just strapping the film canister on the Lego car, putting a little water and Alka-Seltzer tablets inside the canister – cap quickly, put it down and watch the action! We even collected data by measuring how far the car would go backwards and the cap propel forwards depending on how many tablets we put in – 1/2, 1, 1-1/2, 2. The girls told me I had to write and suggest this to you!