/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>253248
my brother and I loved building rockets when we were kids. We started out with the kits, but once we realized you could build them on your own so long as it was rocket shaped we went a little crazy with it.

one time I spent weeks building a model jet that I converted into a rocket. I was so proud of it. Of course its very first launch it flew like a jet and mot a rocket, crashed into a brick wall, and blew up into 100 firey pieces. It was amazing, and also terribly sad.

http://www.amazon.com/Estes-1225-Alpha-Flying-Rocket/dp/B0006N73ZQ

This bitch was my favorite. Had the highest altitude of any model rocket I've ever flown. I'm waiting for my kids to be old enough that we can make these so I can go absolutely nuts with it again.

i went to a school last year to study rockets. we did some of these but also a 20k rocket as a project. fun as hell!

>>253389
do you know if it is legal to get these shipped over to europe?

My friends and I used to shoot just rocket engines out of a vacuum tube. The things you do when firecrackers are hard to acquire.

I used to do model rockets with my dad.
My two favorites were one that looked like a giant pencil and took a C motor, and a little one I painted myself that took an A motor.
>so much nostalgia
(sorry about the poor image quality)

>Bottle rockets for middle school.
>Everyone using wimpy 2liters.
>F*$&% that.
>Dollar tree
>Buy 4 3liters.
>Tried to drink it all but ended up pouring it out.
>Duct taped the fuck out of them.
>90degree PVC Joints on all the bottles.
>All extend toward the middle.
>5way joint in the middle, pointing down.
>3liter-2liter converter that I had to build.
>LAUNCHED THAT FUCKER AT 100 MORE PSI THAN WE WERE SUPPOSED TO.
>???
>Never found it.

>>253447
I built exactly one of those soda bottle rockets, they weren't nearly as fun as the motor rockets.

>>253447
That sounds AWESOME!
do you have a picture?

I remember shooting off maybe 2 rockets as a child. my older brother had a few kits and I tagged along when he set them up to blast off. electric ignition system and all :)

used to love doing these with my dad.

>get this really cool orange rocket
>my dad NEVER used the recommended cartridge and he would always but in one that was a few levels higher.
>one day we go out to this feild to shoot it.
>it flies up really fast
>we didnt see it come down
>lost my favorite rocket :(

>>253564
my dad told me a story about how when he was in collage he and his friends went out to the desert with five A size rockets (the smallest ones available) and a bunch of D size motors (the most powerful ones available)
I guess they loaded fired off all the rockets over a course of an hour or so and the only one they found was hanging out of a tree 10 miles down the highway on the way back

>>253618
what was he doing INSIDE of a collage?

>>253637
getting an English major that he never uses because he's a software engineer

we built em in wood shop in 7th grade, it was pretty cool. mine went the farthest which was good in that i had bragging rights, but i had to take off like a bat out of hell to go get the fucker before we lost track of it as it was coming down.

one of the other guys fucked one of the fins up on his, it went up maybe 4 feet, then started flying horizontal. across the field from where we were, there was an elementary school about to be let out, so there were a bunch of people in cars waiting to pick their kids up. there was an SUV, that luckily had its windows down, and the rocket went right through the front windows. the lady driving it flipped her shit and freaked out at our class, but then he gave her the rocket as a souvenir, and she seemed happy. all in all, pretty great.

my fiancee has 3 kids, one of which is a boy, and i think im gonna take him out to do some rocketry when hes a little older.

>>254501
> fiancee has 3 kids

why would you do that to yourself?

Aw shit. I loved these things but only ever actually launched maybe one or two because I never could afford to get more.

Had a kit with a big foam Death Star that went on top of the rocket and blew apart, but never ended up getting to shoot it off.

>>254505

>>254505
If she had three, she's ready to have more. Obviously, you can't imagine this.

I loved these as a child. We live right behind a school so we go on the field and set them off all the time. Once my dad decided to cram the top level cartridge thing into one meant for the weakest and that shit went insane

>Launch
>It flys up for like 10ft
>starts spinning in mid-air
>going everywhere
>parachute trys to deploy
>catches fire and lands in a bush

And that was the last rocket ever launched at the school.