Backyard Ballistics: Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars, and More Dynamite Devices

Front Cover
Chicago Review Press, Sep 1, 2012 - Science - 240 pages
This bestselling DIY handbook now features new and expanded projects, enabling ordinary folks to construct 16 awesome ballistic devices in their garage or basement workshops using inexpensive household or hardware store materials and this step-by-step guide. Clear instructions, diagrams, and photographs show how to build projects ranging from the simple match-powered rocket to the more complex tabletop catapult and the offbeat Cincinnati fire kite. The classic potato cannon has a new evil twin—the piezo-electric spud gun—and the electromagnetic pipe gun has joined the company of such favorites as the tennis ball mortar. With a strong emphasis on safety, the book also gives tips on troubleshooting, explains the physics behind the projects, and profiles scientists and extraordinary experimenters such as Alfred Nobel, Robert Goddard, and Isaac Newton. This book will be indispensable for the legions of backyard toy-rocket launchers and fireworks fanatics who wish every day was the fourth of July.
 

Contents

1 Keeping Safety in Mind
1
2 The Potato Cannon
9
3 Back Porch Rocketry
31
4 The Cincinnati Fire Kite
59
5 Greek Fire and the Catapult
71
6 The Tennis Ball Mortar
87
7 The Sublimator
99
8 The Flinger
109
11 The Dry Cleaner Bag Balloon
147
12 The Carbide Cannon
157
13 The Electromagnetic Pipe Gun
173
14 The Ballistic Pendulum
183
Ideas for Further Study
193
Advice on Procuring Materials
201
Index
205
Back Cover
215

9 Pnewtons Petard
123
10 The Powder Keg
139

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About the author (2012)

William Gurstelle is the author of Absinthe & Flamethrowers; The Art of the Catapult; Building Bots; The Practical Pyromaniac; Notes from the Technology Underground; and Whoosh, Boom, Splat. He is a professional engineer who has been researching and building model catapults and ballistic devices for more than 30 years and is a contributing editor at Popular Mechanics and Make magazine and writes frequently for Wired, The Rake, and several other national magazines.

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