Types of Water Rocket Launchers

Stomp or Compressed-Air Rocket Launcher

• The compressed-air rocket launcher is the most basic. This launcher has a disc-shaped base containing a perpendicular launch tube. The other end of the tube is inserted into the rocket's base. This tube supplies pressurized air needed for launch and supports the standing rocket during launch. The feeder line is a hollow tube that connects the launch tube in the base to an air pump, which could be a bicycle tire pump or any cylinder that can be collapsed by the hand or foot (hence the label "stomp" launcher. A pressure gauge can be placed on the feeder line to check the amount of pressure in the launch tube.

Overhead Water Rocket Launcher

• This is a more complicated water-bottle rocket launcher. A person firing the rocket places it on one end of a 6-foot PVC pipe using a system of plastic ties. Place the open end on the ground, point the water bottle launcher toward the sky and hold the pipe. Hold the pipe while pressure feeds into the bottle from the pipe connected to a feeder tube extending to a nearby bicycle tire pump until a sufficient pressure level is achieved. Once the pressure reaches the desired level, the rocketeer disengages the pipe from the rocket by jerking down on a rope that joins the connection mechanism.

Clark Cable-Tie Launch System

• The first cable-tie water rocket launcher, originally designed by Ian Clark of Melbourne, Australia, has been a catalyst for designers such as Dean Wheeler, a Brigham Young University professor of chemical engineering. Wheeler perfected a system that releases a rocket using a 10cc syringe mounted at the launcher's side. A puff of pressurized air into the vinyl secondary line connecting the syringe to the Schraeder valve-head on a bicycle pump releases the connector, causing the bottle (fueled by pressurized air from the launch tube) to shoot skyward.

The Poppy

• Wheeler also created another launcher. The "Poppy" Launcher," while more complicated to build, can accommodate different sizes of launcher tubes (which in turn mean different sizes and weights of water bottles). The launcher also fits inside a backpack. This design holds and releases the threads on the bottle using a "quick release" or "split collet."