Inspired by an article in Make Magazine, I built a compressed air rocket launcher and subsequently showcased it at the Champlain Mini Maker Faire for 6 consecutive years. The popular “Make a Rocket with Noah'' booth taught kids and adults alike how to build a rocket out of paper, duct tape, and cardboard, and then propel them over 200 feet in the sky. The rocket launcher is simply a large PVC pipe serving as a reservoir of air compressed at 60-80 psi, and a solenoid valve releasing the air at the push of a button. This simple rocket launcher teaches the basics of aerodynamics through a simple rapid prototyping process. Plus, it’s a blast! The booth was one of the most popular at the Faire and led me to be named Maker of the Year at the 2015 Maker Faire.
Recently, I developed an Arduino-controlled rocket launch controller, which both counts the number of launches performed in a day and also standardizes the amount of compressed air released at each launch. The Arduino takes the input from the launch button and controls a relay to release the compressed air for a specified amount of time. Each time this launch button is pressed, the Arduino increases the stored launch count and displays the new count on an LCD screen. The entire device is housed in a project box with a custom clear lid to allow people to see how the device works. Participants launched a total of 272 rockets at the 2019 Maker Faire! Below is a video of this control system.