Every once in a while, we come across hackathons that do not fit perfectly with all the other amazing hacks featured by us, but still seem to be something that our dear readers need to see as soon as possible. This video of a Thai home-made rocket is one of those things.
It comes to us from our friend [Leo Fernekes], Who documented a form of amateur rocketry that makes it beautiful for our youngsters to see Estates rockets. It’s much easier to see than to describe, but for a quick summary, the rockets are bamboo rings with a steel pipe across the diameter. The pipe is packed with homemade gunpowder and fed with a nozzle that produces both thrust and rotation. When the torches severely touch the sketchy primers, the rocket begins to spin, eventually rising from the launch pad and throwing itself into the sky in a column of gray smoke twists.
Across three or four meters, these are not small vehicles. Instead of letting a steel pipe return to Earth from a height of several hundred meters, the rocket launchers created a clever recovery system that placed a parachute when the rocket motor eventually melted through some plastic straps. The banana bark is easy to use as a heat shield for parachute protection but effective; Which is really the way you can describe the whole enterprise. [Leo] There is another way to describe it: “Dangerously neglected insanity”, of course with all due respect and affection. That, too, seems to be a big deal – the air is clearly full of competition, not to mention the stench of rotten eggs.
Should you try this at home? Probably not – we can think of dozens of reasons why this is a bad idea. Still, it’s amazing to see, and it’s really amazing how high these rockets can get. Hats off to [Leo] For us to find this.