Anti-Gravity Research Water Bottle Rocket

On recommendation of a co-worker, recently ordered the Skylab Water Rocket kit from Anti-Gravity Research. Got around to assembling it on a beautiful June day, accompanied by Miles and one of his friends. Downloadable instructions were super detailed with great pictures. Hardest part, of course, was finding a 2-liter pop bottle (who goes through that much soda, anyway?) I took a nip, and the rest went down the drain. The rest of the build was straightforward – snip off the retainer ring near the neck, attach the bumper with rubber bands (included), assemble the fins, and attach the guide tube (which slides over a stick to ensure a true vertical launch).

The included fins were really my only complaint about the kit – they’re finicky to put together, and they pop off on impact with every flight. Covered in soapy water, they get slippery, which makes putting them back together even more of a noodle. Have written the company asking why they don’t do a one-piece fin assembly.

Put about 1/2″ of “fuel” (water with 10% dishwashing soap for an extra fizzy vapor trail) into the bottle, attach the high-thrust bottle cap adapter, slip on the fin assembly, and insert the air pressure nozzle. For safety, the kit comes with a 20-foot connector hose, which runs to an ordinary bicycle pump. Start jacking! Immediately, the soapy water creates a foam visible inside the bottle. A few strokes later, the bottle is bulging with pressurized foam.

Anti Gravity Research water rocket from Scot Hacker on Vimeo.

Pardon the bouncing camera as I was pumping with one hand and shooting with the other. Feel the expectation in the air? Love the kids’ commentary.

It’s impossible to know exactly when it’s going to go off – basically whenever the pressure-fit nozzle can no longer withstand the pressure of the foam. But when it does, holy mother of pearl! If I had to guess, I’d say the rocket flew between 100 and 125 straight into the air, majestic!

The 8-year-olds I was with weren’t able to pump hard enough to get it going so that remained a grown up job, but they were fully involved in the rest of the process, and love love loved it.

Recommended.

Update: I corresponded with Ken at Anti-Gravity, who saw this post and responded:

You estimated that the rocket had flown 100 to 125 feet up. If you pump quickly, the rocket will usually keep hanging on until about 60 or 70 pumps, and if the rocket has enough water in it (at these higher pressures it can carry up much more water without tipping over) the rocket can reach 400 feet altitude or more. In our development tests, using a high-strength bottle, the SkyLab has reached an altitude of 570 feet.

Yow!

Maker Faire 2011

Bird of Broken Toys Miles and I have attended Maker Faire in San Mateo every May since it started five years ago. It’s gotten huger with every passing year of course – wall to wall people, and tricky driving/parking if you don’t arrive first thing. A lot of the same themes from year to year, but always something new to feast the eyes and tease the brain. Didn’t stay as long this year, didn’t dig as deep, and didn’t get as many diggable photos as we have in the past, but still glad we went and will keep on keeping on!

Strangely, one of the best moments of the day had nothing to do with welding or LEDs or Adam Savage. It was a magical encounter with a lone man sitting at a small typewriter (yes, typewriter), selling poems. “You name the topic, you name the price.” With a friend’s 50th birthday coming up that night, I asked him to improvise on the topic of “bicycles in the city of your mind.” We carried on a conversation about French surrealist Alfred Jarry and his impact a hundred years later on the punk/new wave movement, and about how Picasso actually bought his gun after he passed, and ended with me spontaneously ejecting the sentence “This moment is a grommet through which the aglet of morning has finally emerged.” We laughed, he handed me the finished poem, and it was absolutely fantastic (sorry, I already gave it away as a gift, so can’t share it here). More at zachhouston.com.

Flickr set

Political Speech

Had so much fun playing Mad Libs as a child , diving headlong into surrealism and humor while learning the parts of speech. Thrilled to see Miles getting into Mad Libs now – we’re having a gas learning to tell our adverbs from our plural nouns. Loved the Nixon and other old-school political references in this one he completed today:

Ladies and gentlemen, on this sleepy occasion, it is a privilege to address such a gassy looking group of birds. I can tell from your smiling cars that you will support my sassy program in the coming election. I promise that, if elected, there will be a mirror in every toothpaste and two leaves in every garage. I want to warn you against my stinky opponent Mr. Miles. The man is a cool shoe. He has a boastful character and is working vent in glove with the criminal element. If elected, I promise to eliminate vice. I will keep the sea turtles off the city streets. I will keep crooks from dipping their pencils in the public till. I promise you rainy government, clean taxes, and runny schools.

Bristlebots in the Classroom

A year ago, Miles and I made our first Bristlebot – a small robot made from a toothbrush head, hearing aid battery, and the vibrating motor from a cell phone – which skitters around on flat surfaces in chaotic patterns.

Enterprise

The experiment didn’t end well – Miles grabbed a hot soldering iron by the shaft when I wasn’t looking and we had to segue into burn control. When that subsided, we had great fun racing the bot across the floor.

I just volunteered to help his entire second/third grade classroom build their own bristlebots this April. We’ll also try a variant with mint tins and paper clip legs. We plan to build a “sumo” ring they can push each other out of, and may also try our hand at bristlebot painting:

Chris Cerrito’s Vibrobots on Paint from Anderson Miller on Vimeo.

Found a good source for a battery + motor combo pack, which I’ll be ordering in bulk. Now just need to get my hands on a lot of toothbrushes!

Instagram on Flickr

I’ve fallen in love with the iPhone-only photo sharing service Instagram. It’s kind of like Twitter, but for images only. Instead of a post being limited to 140 characters, posts are limited to one photograph and a title — that’s it! Users build social networks within the system by “Liking” images and following other users.

Sounds almost too simple to be interesting, but I find it incredibly refreshing – at a certain point, we all get overwhelmed by the deluge of words in our lives, and can’t possibly consume another tweet or Facebook post. Instagram lets us share tiny corners of our lives, those little magic moments that otherwise would pass unnoticed, as a pure, nearly wordless photostream. There’s something very simple and refreshing about it. And for me, it’s encouraged use of the iPhone’s built-in camera as a more artistic tool (but be careful of over-using Instagram’s built-in filters).

Unfortunately, Instagram has no real web interface, which means there’s no easy way to share your images with non-iPhone users. But images are still saved on the phone itself, so there’s nothing stopping you from uploading them to Flickr or other services manually. I’ve started a Flickr set, and will upload my saved Instagrams to it periodically.

Leaves after rain

Flickr set

I’m shacker on Instagram if you want to connect.

Batman and Robin

Dad used to develop film for the TV industry in Hollywood. Around the age I started watching Batman and Robin on TV, he was telling us he was having lunch with them on set. And… damn him… he told us how they climbed up buildings. Just a matter of turning the camera sideways, he said. Which totally ruined the magic of it for me and my brother. Except that it didn’t.

Maker Faire 2010

Miles and I have a perfect track record so far at Maker Faire, attending every year since its inception in 2006. This year was our fifth time out, though things took a slightly different turn this year. Rather than it being father/son bonding time, my extended family trekked out to the Bay Area for the experience. Corralling nine people meant a bit less explore time, so we saw less of the cornucopia, but what we did see was amazing, as always.

Highlights: RC-controlled neon land sharks chasing kids around in the dark. Tall bikes everywhere, including one with “roots” that could be deployed at the flip of a lever so the rider could stop at lights without toppling over. A grand steampunk calliope with half-sawn tubas, whoopee whistles, cuckoos, and tubes galore honking out a rendition of Yellow Submarine. The giant Tesla coils throwing lightning, but this time generating music at the same time (remember Hot Buttered’s “Popcorn?” Imagine that set to explosive blue electricity). A guy playing drums, didgeridoo and bass at the same time. 6-ft.-wide plates of paella. The life-size mousetrap, as always.

Unfortunately, the Wooden Bikes crowd was nowhere to be seen, and the Cyclecide crew’s human-powered carnival rides were shut down for a break when we arrived. Still, Maker Faire remains “Burning Man for families” – an explosion of creativity and weld joints like no other. Won’t be the last.

Took fewer photos than usual, but managed to put together an OK Flickr set.

Pogo for Grownups

The world has changed since you last rode a pogo stick. Namely, you’ve gotten bigger – too big to ride the spring-loaded stick that carried you down the block between ages six and twelve. But good news: A few companies are making pogos re-engineered for grown-ups, so you can recapture that marvelous elastic bounce. Even cooler – they’re not spring-loaded anymore – modern pogos are brought to you pneumatically, with cylinders of air that can be pressurized to work with your body weight and desired boing-ratio.

Lucked out at a picnic in the woods today when one of the guys pulled a Vurtego from the bed of his pickup and went for it. After watching for a while, I asked for a turn. Here are the results of my first three attempts. It had been 35 years since I’d been on one, but like riding a bicycle, the muscle memory never really leaves your body.

Grownup Pogo from Scot Hacker on Vimeo.

The rennaissance of grown-up pogo sticks has given rise to the tiny cottage sport of extreme pogo, championed by Pogo Fred.

Pencil Art

… but not like you’d expect.

Jennifer Maestre creates incredible sculptures out of pencils and nails, inspired by the form and function of the sea urchin. Not quite like anything you’ve ever seen. I love the idea of taking things that are inherently linear and creating something so distinctly non-linear. Gorgeous.

Playing With Light

Amy, Miles and I did some experiments with flashlights and a laser pen recently, drawing in the air in the kitchen with 6-second timed exposures. Unfortunately Amy’s camera didn’t have a CF card inserted, so we were able to save only a few of them done with my dinky point-and-shoot (I actually didn’t realize my SD1100 was even capable of doing timed exposures until that evening).

Volkswagen

Dig my little Volkswagen? Would like to play with this technique more one day – great possibilities.

Flickr Set