This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Alternative Fuels

This weekend we flew with some “alternative” fuels in our water rockets. OK so technically they weren’t “water” rockets, but hey still it was a bit of fun with the kids. From a scientific point of view it was interesting to see how these fuels behaved.

Fuels Tested:
    - Bread crumbs (dry)
    - 100’s and 1000’s (dry)
    - Sugar (dry) - the other kind of “Candy” motor :)
    - 2 minute noodles (cooked and in broth)

So how did they go? … read on:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day113.htm

 

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey George,

HA HA HA, a little bit of a horror show show with the noodles there :P I can imagine cleaning all that was just as bad. I tried to keep a straight face but unfortunately didn't work :P

Regards Doug

Anonymous said...

Again some nice experiments!
This weekend I was thinking what would happen if you use some kind of burning fluid and putting a candle or some other fire source on the launch pad. Would you get a fire breathing rocket?
Could be nice for a night launch ;-)

greetings Jan
PS I'm also starting a blog http://www.bloggen.be/jfwaterrockets/
I will try to post in 2 languages (Dutch and English)

George Katz said...

@Doug: Yeah, the noodles were definitely a bit gross to clean up. We brought plenty of water to wash everything down at the launch site.
We certainly got a few odd looks, but it was all in good fun. :)

George Katz said...

@Anonynmous/Jan - Thanks!

I'm sure most water rocketeers have had the same thought of putting flamable liquids into their water rockets at one time or another.

No matter how tempting this may be just DON'T DO IT. The short lived thrill comes at a great risk to your health. There are a couple of videos of this on YouTube, and you can see how dangerous it is.

Also thank you for the link to your new blog. I will add it to our links page. :)

All the best

- George

Anonymous said...

Hey George,

Out of genuine curiosity, do you think that NASA will be pursuing Two minute noodles as a possible alternative to rocket fuel ??

Yours Sincerely
Anonymous

George Katz said...

@Anonymous: I seriously doubt it ... I believe they are currently investigating the performance of tortellini for their future programs. :P

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