Make rockets from stuff you have around the house. (And if you don’t have them around the house you can get the supplies to make hundreds of rockets for a couple dollars.)

This is one of my favorite projects. It’s fun, cheap, hands on, and educational. My brothers taught me how to make them when I was about nine years old, but I suspect it originally dates to a time when young boys carried everything they needed in their pockets: Matches, a bit of wire, and a foil gum wrapper. Over time bits of wire gave way to paper clips and pins, and gum apparently doesn’t come in foil wrappers any more, so we’ll make do with regular aluminum foil. Here’s the full how-to with a about two dozen rocket launches included because I was having too much fun:

(YouTube version)

We’re harnessing the solid fuel in the match head as propellant for our rocket. When a match is lit the solid fuel in the match head turns into a gas. Gas takes up more space than the same weight of solid so it expands like crazy. That gives us enough power to make a tiny rocket – if we can harness it!

This is as close as I could get to photographing an action shot. These things take off incredibly quickly!

We wrap the head of the match in foil to contain the expanding gases. (This is one case where cheap foil is better. Every milligram of weight counts when using a match head as propellant.) We place a pin along the side of the match before wrapping it to create a tube down the length of the foil. This tube will channel the expanding gases, generating thrust.

Be sure to form it tight around the head of the match and run your fingernails along the edge of the pin to create a tight seal.

Bend a paper clip to make a launch pad. (Honestly, it’s not the best launch pad, the rockets fall off a lot, but it has the advantage of being simple and easily available. Feel free to improvise something better.)

Then place a lit match (or better, a long-neck lighter) under the head of the match and wait…

Launching these reminds me of the anxious rocket launches of the early 60’s. You never knew what was going to happen. In this case you don’t know when it’s going to happen either. Maybe 5 seconds, maybe 15… Maybe the wind will blow out the match before it lights. But when it goes you’ll know. It’s gone in a flash of smoke and a distinctive whisssssss sound. A good one will go 10 feet, some might go a couple inches. You will get a number of duds (I got 3 out of 15 shooting the video up top) that will just sit there and smoke. Some might even go sideways or backwards. Which leads me to:

Safety: We’re playing with matches.* So be safe. Do it in a well ventilated area clear of flammables. And wear eye protection because when you launch these things they take off faster than you can blink and they don’t always go where you aim them. Making the video I had one shoot backwards and another fly right at my face. A hot match in the eye kills the fun pretty quickly. And it’s a reasonable precaution to keep a bucket of water handy.

Robot Factory: If you want to make something fun to hand out I made a pattern for turning a matchbook into a rocket factory. It has full instructions on how to make the rockets and a place for a pin and paper clip, fold up a bit of foil and put it inside and you’re good to go! Download and print the PDF.