Water-Rocket-Powered Cars

Jim Gallant writes "Big cheap thrills for very little money are yours by making water rocket powered cars. They're fun! They're hilarious! Amaze your friends."

Comments

Hmmm, what about a Dry Ice car ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone ever made a dry-ice bomb ??

Im sure you could somehow use a modified version to power a car/rocket.

Any Ideas ?

Re:Hmmm, what about a Dry Ice car ?

[Mt._Honkey]

Hmmm... here's an idea: If you use the plastic soda bottle variety you could somehow modify the cap so that it breaks before the rest of the bottle (maybe cut a circle in it that goes half way through). Pressure will build up and when the cap blows out you get a (very) brief and powerful rocket blast.

I perfer Liquid Nitrogen to dry ice. MUCH safer to handle, and there are many many many more cool things that you can do with it. At U of I, we use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream in seconds.

Re:Hmmm, what about a Dry Ice car ?

[geekd]

An ex-coworker of mine used a dry ice bomb on his neighbor, who was being too loud.

The cops came, a cop took another dry ice bomb out of this guys freezer, and it blew up in the cops hand.

Arrested, jail until trial, half-way house for 6 months.

In this post - 9/11 America, dry ice bombs are a bad idea.

link

I did that once...

[paul248]

When I was 10 or so, I made something like this. I took a 2-liter pop bottle, turned it sideways, and duct taped it to a set of wheels from an old plastic train. Then I hot-glued part of a pen cap into a hole in the bottom of the bottle, and connected a hose from the pen cap to the side (now the bottom) of the bottle. In order to make it work, I opened the lid and filled it about halfway with water. Then I attached a bike pump to the pen cap, and pushed in some air. When the pump was removed, the air pressure pushed the water up through the hose and out the back, shooting the car forward 3 meters or so. The only problem I had was that I could never get the hot glue to seal well around the pen cap, so it would break loose after a few runs. All in all, it was pretty cool.

To hell with water....

[ThrudTheBarbarian]

Along much the same lines, here's one a friend showed me once (and I've done myself).

Take an old 2-Liter, make sure it's dry. Create a small hole in the center of the lid, about big enough to insert the head of a Bic pen (3/16" ish). Take a capful of rubbing alcohol, dunp it in the bottle, screw the cap back on and swirl it around until it all evaporates. Then, take it OUTSIDE (preferably at night) and hold it in one hand, cap down. Take a lighter with the other hand and touch it to the hole in the cap. Instant rocket. The cool thing about this is that at night you can watch a blue flame wave travel up the bottle as it goes up.

Some important notes:

1) Make sure the hole in the cap is big enough or it blows up as the pressure can't escape fast enough
2) If it blows up, you didn't hear this from me :)
3) I'm told not to try this with 5-Gal plastic water bottles (the hole isn't big enough)
4) Rubbing alcohol with higher percentage alcohol is better (there are at least two types commonly available here)
5) Cycle fresh air into the bottle before re-launching

Have Fun

Usual disclaimer - this is for entertainment purposes only - so if you blow yourself up, it's not my fault (but make sure to do it spectacularly in front of friends because this is for entertainment :^))

Re:Is it just me

[RGRistroph]

My best price ever was 6.5 cents for each pack, in a big 24-piece box.

Damn, I saw another headline!

[faaaz]

Water-powered rocket-cars, now THAT would have been something!