Step-by-step tutorial
Step 1
If your container has an attached lid, cut it off. This will help your rocket fly straighter.
Step 2
Decorate your rocket however you’d like! We added a nose cone, fins, and some shiny mylar flames.
Step 3
Fill your container one third of the way full with water. Then grab all of your materials and your safety glasses and head outside. You’re almost ready to launch!
Warning
Important: put your safety glasses on now! This step happens fast, so you need to be ready before you start. Make sure you’re working on a smooth outdoor surface, away from any obstructions.
Step 4
Break off a small piece of the fizzy tablet and drop it into the water. Immediately snap the lid of your rocket container back on, then place it lid-side down on a smooth surface.
Step back and watch it fly!
Step 5
You can launch your rocket again and again, so feel free to experiment! After our first launch, we were able to put the lid back on and get a second launch without adding more fizzy tablet. Or, when it runs out of fizz, just add more water and fizzy tablet and try again. Try using a larger or smaller piece of fizzy tablet and see what happens.
Warning
What’s going on?
To see what’s going on here, try dropping a fizzy tablet into clear glass of water and watch what happens. You’ll see the tablet immediately create lots of tiny bubbles that rise up to the surface of the water. Those bubbles are carbon dioxide gas, created by a chemical reaction between two ingredients in the tablets.
When that reaction takes place inside your pop-top rocket, the carbon dioxide gas has nowhere to go. More and more builds up inside your rocket until… pop! Eventually the pressure from the gas becomes too great and the pop-top seal lets go, sending your rocket shooting up into the air.