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

Mirror

[mskfisher]

The server seemed shaky, so I put my subscription to good use and set up a mirror.

It is at: http://www.mskf.org/rocket_mirror/

Re:Mirror

[caino59]

another mirror.

for good measure.

Thanks, but

[Gizzmonic]

I'd rather higher a hooker.

NK

[telstar]

Are these the top-secret photos of the nuclear arsenal North Korea claims to have?

Gas?

[govatos]

So, what would happen if you used gas instead of water, and had a dozen flints dragging behind the car on a distance/anti-wheelie bar? Now THAT would be fun.

Feel the power of the Dark Si...

[arakon]

err Slashdot Effect?

Damn that one crumpled fast.

Who posted that link, that was probably hoseted on some dudes DSL.

Really there is no reason why Slashdot doesn't mirror a site on this server for a few days. I mean on those obviously home grown sites especially,

First thing I though of from looking at the clips:

[gpinzone]

A rocket powered enema! From constipated to diareha in 5 seconds flat!

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

Torrent Mirror

[SeanTobin]

Yes, its the most incorrect use of bittorrent possible! A mirror of a site with some pictures. All tar'd for your enjoyment.
rocketcar.tar.torrent

At least I selected a proper chunk size :)

Just one missing word

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it amazing what you can accomplish by ommiting one single word, such as TOY!

No Darwin Award Here

[anagama]

This reminds me of that old story about a guy attaching a jet to his Chevy and killing himself, thus meriting a Darwin Award.

Except the guy with the water rocket car seems far more clever. I want to make one of these myself!

Re:No Darwin Award Here

[1nsane0ne]

Ermm just to clarify for everyone before they click the link, right on the page this story is described to be an urban legend.

"This Darwin Award is the most popular of all time. Considered true for years, it was later debunked as an Urban Legend by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The story fooled the judges in 1995, so JATO has been grandfathered in as a Darwin Award Winner."

Not that you were claiming it was true, just pasting for everyone who's too lazy to scroll below the darwin award's voting stuff.

Re:No Darwin Award Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst thefted from someone elses post a couple of days ago, this guy claims to be responsible for the origins of the rocket-car-into-cliff story. A really detailed and amusing read.

Hold out for the

[Troll_in_Captivity]

Red-Bull powered rocket car. First generations always suck

I disagree with one thing

[worst_name_ever]

From the article: Let his be a lesson to you SUV owners out there, don't ever attach a giant water rocket to your Ford Expedition!

Nuts to that. I'd love to see all the Ford Expedition drivers in my town strap big freaking rockets to their gas-guzzling monster trucks and launch themselves and their screaming brats straight to Mars.

Plus, I bet the mist from the water rocket exhaust would make a purty rainbow. Everybody wins!

He stole that barbie car

[Ayanami Rei]

from a little girl at a goodwill store.

Which he then mutilated and then proceeded to launch off a dangerous ramp. He probably got the attention of the whole trailer park.

If I was that little girl, I'd be kicking him in the nads.
Fucker.

Re:He stole that barbie car

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was that little girl, I'd be asking my parents why I have to get my toys from a fucking thrift shop.

Is it just me

[jrl87]

Does this guy's kid have a problem?
1st I would have given almost anything to shoot, blow up, or melt (or anything else you can think of) a G.I. Joe
and 2nd why does he have a Barby car

Re:Is it just me

[pdbogen]

RTFA. He bought the barbie car from Good Will. $0.99, same as 7 packages of Ramen.

Re:Is it just me

[RGRistroph]

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

Yoinks! Thats dangerous!

[madmarcel]

Thank god that site got /.ed so quickly!

<concerned voice>
As a concerned parent(-to-be-someday ;) I must
warn the slashdot editors that they should take more care when posting such recklessly dangerous articles on their website! Tsk tsk tsk!

Geez, imagine if some naive slashdotter were to try that at home...no doubt he'll get carried away...start using larger bottles...larger barbie car...moving on to a decent size drum...then mounting the whole thing on an old car frame...then the ramp is deployed...the pressure rises...neighbours houses are perforated...and <*bang*> suddenly Slashdot will be the first website ever to be responsible for launching soggy geeks into orbit!! :P

Yes, it could happen...

Another Mirror

[Devil's BSD]

I set up another mirror, just in case.

http://devilsbsd.mg2.org/waterrocket/

Site is several years old

[MonkeyBoyo]

As someone who has been on the Water Rocket mailing list for years, this site was discussed several years ago. Still, it is fun and cute.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I got my barbies from the thrift store.

[Ayanami Rei]

And I liked them even if they weren't the same color as me, or they were limb/head-challenged. It taught me to be more tolerant of others.
And those I can't tolerate I kick in the nads. Or shins, if they are nads-challenged. Sometimes both.

I always wanted the barbie car. That fucker has to flaunt my childhood around violated with metal valve fittings.

That's a nads, shin, and fist to the solar plexus. ::gwwwwarwl::

CO2 cartridge

[Ayanami Rei]

Forget dry ice, people race cars powered by compressed CO2 cartridges. They can be had for $.50 or less each, if you shop around. Stores better than dry ice.

Compressed Air

[heli0]

The are several compressed air powered toys on the market as well. The brand "air hogs" seems to be the most common. They have planes, rockets, cars, etc. Here is a pic of some of their products AirHog Products.

The plane in particular is a lot of fun and will travel ~100m.

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.

It Slashdotted everywhere

[Lucky Kevin]

Here's the google cache

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 :^))

70's quotage

[Scrameustache]

There's this car...that runs on water! It runs on water man!

Anyone else do this in High School?

[notb4dinner]

We actually did pretty much the same thing for a 'Design and Technology' project in high school. The team who got their car to go the furthest won a small cash prize. Of course on our side of the planet there's this thing called aerodynamics so the bottles were mounted horizontally. Beyond that the only secret to getting maximum velocity out of these things is to experiment and find the optimum volume of water, so that you run out of proppellant at the same time as the pressure runs out.

Damn, I saw another headline!

[faaaz]

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