Our final activity on day #1 of my week long summer science camp was the building of stomp rockets. You can buy stomp rocket kits at various online stores, but I built my own simple system using these simple instructions provided by NASA.
How to Build Stomp Rockets
The kids had fun building and launching their rockets. We talked about ways to make them more aerodynamic and then had a contest to see which rockets went the farthest and the highest. One of my adult helpers built his own stomp rocket and the kids got a huge kick out of watching him launch it because his went far higher and farther than any of the other rockets. This was a great opportunity to get the kids thinking and asking why his went farther. They brought up the careful design of the fins and nose cone the adult helper put together, but they also talked about how he's an adult and he can stomp harder, pushing the air out of the tubes faster and thus launching the rocket higher. Some high quality critical thinking in this class!
Check out the link above for a cheap and simple method to build your own stomp rocket launch system. They are a ton of fun!!!
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