Water Rockets

How it works

With a plain pop bottle and an initial pressure of about 6 bar heights of about 50 m can be reached. Pop bottles are designed to stand pressures of up to 12 bar. Adding fins for stabilisation and a aerodynamically formed nose cone to reduce the air resistance, easily increases the maximum heights achievable by a factor of two or more.

The world record at present is more than 300 m !!!         Can you reach or even beat this?


Water Rockets are educational and competitions are fun events. Pupils or students construct and optimise rockets and compete for the best performance, either at home or at local or national competitions with other rocket enthusiasts.

As heights are difficult to measure precisely, usually rockets are fired at an angle and the distance from launch to landing is measured, or the total time in air is recorded. To prevent damage of the elaborate rockets, parachutes or wings can be attached which unfold at the maximum height to initiate a slow and safe decent back to ground.


There are lots of sites on Water Rockets on the internet with photographs, explanations, simulations, information on launch pads, fins, parachutes, multi-stage rockets, championships ... It's a real industry !


Search in any search engine for:     “water” + "rocket”

Here are a few examples:


  1. Bullet   NASA Rocket and Water Rocket pages and tutorial.

  2. Bullet   ScienceGuy Water Rockets

  3. Bullet   Water Rocket World Records Association

  4. Bullet   Bigfoot Water Rocket Launcher Systems - lot's of illustrations, photos, instructions, and list of related water rocket websites.

  5. Bullet   Nerds Inc. - sell water rocket launch pads made from aluminium.

  6. Bullet   The Water Rocket Garage - lots of info, images and links,

  7. Bullet   Science Toy Maker - how to make an overhead water rocket launcher

  8. Bullet   NPL Water rocket events

  9. Bullet   CO2 Powered H2O Rockets

  10. Bullet   Water Rockets - our motto: “Really, it is rocket science...”

  11. Bullet   water-rockets.com - high-pressure water rockets built by hobbyists.

  12. Bullet   Water Rocket simulations - specify parameters and simulate the flight.

  13. Bullet   Water Rocket Explorer - how to build a water rocket and many practicalities

  14. Bullet   Water Rockets - all you need to know about Water Rockets. How to build, make a launcher and more.

  15. Bullet   Clifford Heath's Water Rocket page

  16. Bullet   Buy a simple Rocket kit

+++ BBC "Bang goes the Theory" feature on Water Rockets +++http://www.bbc.co.uk/bang/handson/waterbottlerockets.shtml