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Some months ago, I discovered water rockets while reading Make magazine's 5th issue. The idea is very simple: take a plastic soda bottle, fill it partly with water, add pressured air, and release. The practical difficulties are mainly the release mechanism and the recovery mechanism (i.e., releasing the parachute not too early and not too late). So two weeks ago I started to experiment with my brother-in-law, starting with the release mechanism and a simple bottle, as well as a standalone parachte. This (long) week-end, we built a full rocket, inclunding a nose holding the parachute and fins. It was painted red, because the transparent bottle was hard to spot in the sky, and even harder to find after landing in high grass.

Lauchpad Construction

The lauchpad is made of one PVC tube that goes into the rocket, plus one wider tube around the first one that is part of the release mechanism and holds the rocket while on the tube. Three screws placed on the grey tube at 120° from each other hold the white tube in the middle of the grey one.

An O-ring is placed on the thinner tube so that the neck of the bottle will go just around it.

Release mechanism

The release mechanism relies on the wide ring just below the bottle's neck. Once on place on the tube, a metal pin will go around the neck and above the ring, preventing the bottle from taking off. The closeups will show the ring, just visible through the slot in the grey tube.

A rope connected to the pin allows to pull it from a safe distance. The rope is attached to the pole so that the pin doesn't jump to the face of the person pulling it (it hurts).

Currently, the release mechanism is not very reliable, it gets jammed from time to time and the rocket doesn't take off vertically. Also, the seal around the launch tube is not tight enough, there is some amount of leaking.

The other end of the thinner tube is connected to the air compressor. Getting a tight enough connection here was not easy, but after several attempts we found one combination of rubber hoses and collars that works. More or less. It sometimes pops off.

Rocket Construction

Building the rocket was quite straightforward. One thing to remember: epoxy will hold the fins onto the rocket quite well, but it will break upon impact on the ground (understand: crash landing when the parachute doesn't open). Polyurethane glue (actually some kind of PU filling material) on the other hand will hold them in place and be flexible enough so that the bond won't break on impact. The aspect is pretty ugly, but it works. It just needs to dry overnight. Building a support for the bottle and the fins helps keeping them in place when drying. It's made of a cork screwed into a piece of wood of the proper height, and attached to a plank into which slots have beed sawn in order to hold the fins.

Parachute

The parachute is folded into the nose cone during the flight, and the nose is supposed to pop off when the rocket reaches its apogee. The problem was that more often than not, the cone didn't open, and the parachute didn't open at all. Finding the balance between a nose which is too tight on the rocket and a nose that falls off with a simple gust of wind before take off is very difficult. According to this website, I think the rocket should take off as vertically as possible, and the nose should hold only because of the force of the acceleration, and fall off as soon as the rocket is not in stable flight anymore. But the holes in the cone for decreaseing the pressure inside it is something to try, too.

Flight

This is the last flight of the week end, the only one that was more or less a success with the red rocket. The video was shot at 30 fps, therefore one frame below lasts 33 ms. One can see that the nose separates quite early from the body, probably because of the flight not being straight up.

The original video clip is also available.

Bad Landings

These bad landings where quite soft ones, because the parachute did open and slowed the rocket down.

There have been other bad landings where the nose of the rocket didn't fall off, and where the rocket fell down like a stone straight onto its nose. It's been bumped in many times, but it was still able to fly afterwards! The test bottle once crashed and had many bumps and creases, but it was possible to inflate it again, and the only tiny hole it had could be fixed with duct tape (blessed be the inventor of duct tape!)

“A traditional English ale, but cold-conditioned as a lager.”

Smells of yeast, tastes like a lager, a little bitter. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Daleside Brewery Limited, Yorkshire, England. 4.3% alcohol.

Sixteenth volume in the Discworld series, Soul Music has been published in 1994 by Terry Pratchett.

Susan, a sixteen years old orphan is the adoptive granddaughter of Death. When Death decides to quit its job and try to understand the concept of forgeting, she inherits her grandfather's special abilities and feels compelled to replace him. At the same time, Imp y Celyn, a musiciam from Llamedos, arrives in Ankh-Morpork and meets Lias the troll and Glod the dwarf, musicians too. Since Imp's harp gor broken, they go to a mysterious music shop and Imp buys a mysterious guitar. Imp and his two new friends start playing in pubs for a handfull of dollars, trying to avoid the representatives of the Guild of Musicians who mercilessly track people who dare to play music without paying the guild's outrageously high fee. The guitar has a kind of magical influence on the band and makes them play a new kind of music that they describe as Music with Rocks in. Susan is present at the concert since Imp is supposed to die there, but for some reason, he doesn't. Later, Imp decides to change his name to Buddy (Imp = bud, celyn = holly) and Lias changes his to Cliff. They meet Dibbler, who becomes their manager and organises a concert tour to Pseudopolis, Sto Lat and Quirm. In exchange, Buddy demands a free music festival, because in his opinion, music should be free and people shouldn't have to pay for it. Dibbler finally accepts, after estimating how many sausages and other products he could sell the the audience, as well as with music recording boxes invented by Ponder Stibbons. During the tour, Buddy becomes more and more apathic, and it becomes clear that the guitar is playing the man during the concerts rather than the other way round. At the end of their concert they decide to flee on a cart, but they got an accident on the road. Death appears again, having learned that he cannot learn how to forget, and returns to his duty, explaining to Susan (who witnessed the accident) that Buddy died already long time ago, but only music was keeping him going, which broke the fabric of reality. With the accident, reality comes back and part of what happened ceases to exist, replaced with another of the possible alternate realities. Susan understands that Buddy/Imp is alive, somewhere, and she event learns eventually where he probably is.

“In English pubs, Bodingtons is served using the traditional hand-pulled method”

Very smooth taste that reminded me of violet or marshmallow, with a distinctive yeast taste. Almost no bitterness. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Inbev UK Limited, Luton, England. 4.7% alcohol.

Very geeky, quite funny.

“In fact, draw all your rotational matrices sideways. Your professors will love it! And then they'll go home and shrink.”

“That cat has some serious periodic components.”

“This one is from the Red Belt collection, of 'medium' difficulty.”

Lau Xing just stole from the Bank of England a jade Buddha recently stolen from his village in China. Trying to escape the police, he enters at the service of Phileas Fogg under the made-up name of Passepartout. Fogg is an inventor who is ridiculled by Lord Kelvin, the head of the Royal Academy of Science. He then makes a wager with Lord Kelvin where the stakes are Lord Kelvins position against Fogg's giving up tinkering and inventing. The wager is about going around the world in 80 days (the idea being discretely suggested by Passepartout, who needs to bring the buddha back to China). They soon leave for France, where they meet Monique La Roche, a painter who wants to travel across the world to get inspiration. They are also followed by chinese bandits who try to recover the Buddha (it had been stolen by their leader, who is an accomplice of Lord Kelvin, who wants to colonize a part of China). They are also followed by Inspector Fix, a corrupt policeman, paid by Lord Kelvin to stop them, under the pretense that Fogg is the thief. Because of the bandits, they missede the Orient Express, but manage to catch it later using a hot air balloon. In Turkey they are “invited” by a local prince who then wants to keep Monique as his seventh wife. They manage to escape and go to India (whre they fight some Chinese thugs and Fix), then to China where Passepartout returns the Buddha (and fights some thugs). Fogg discovers that he has been cheated by both his valet and Monique, and decides to go on alone. He arrives in San Francisco, but gets robbed of all his money and clothes. He ends up as a beggar, until Passepartout and Monique find hime again. Together, they cross the desert, meet the Wright brothers, then arrive in New York, where they fight the Chinese thugs and their leader again. They defeat them, but miss their boat to England, and hire a small boat to attempt to cross the ocean. Lacking coal, the boat must resort to using sails, but it won't be fast enough. Fogg then builts a flying machine, inspired by the plans the Wright brothers had shown him. They at last arrive in London, crashing their plane in front of the Royal Academy, but Kelvin attempts to prevent them to enter the hall before noon, which was the time and place where they were supposed to end their trip. They are saved by Queen Victoria, who reminds them that because of their traveling east, they actually are one day earlier than they thought. They finally enter the building and Fogg wins the wager and Kelvin's position as Ministry of Science.

Le mur d'une cellule d'un monastère lorrain se met à saigner lorsqu'un novice y plante un crucifix. Un maçon y est retrouvé emmuré, mur qu'il avait aidé à réparer quelques semaines plus tôt. Le commissaire Niémans mène l'enquêtei aidé du capitaine Reda. Un peu plus tard, un homme ressemblant étrangement à Jesus est retrouvé blessé par balle par la police, et un prêtre à la force surhumaine tente de l'assassiner à l'hôpital où il a été conduit. Puis un douanier et deux joaillers sont assassinés, suivis par l'administrateur d'un supermarché et quatre pêcheurs sont retrouvés noyés. Ces personnes étaient au nombre de douze, portaient les mêmes noms et pratiquaient les mêmes professions que les douze apôtres, et étaient des disciples de Jésus. Ce dernier, dans son délire, parle de l'apocalypse et des septs sceaux qui sont brisés un à un. L'enquête de Niémans le mène à une section de la ligne Maginot, qui a été occupée par les allemands et modifiée par ces derniers pendant la guerre. Avec l'aide d'une spécialiste des religions, Niémans apprend que les mystérieux assassins sont à la recherche du livre écrit des mains de Dieu, qui pourra être lu par celui qui brisera le dernier sceau. Ce livre avait été un trésor du Vatican et volé par Lothaire II puis enfoui dans un tombeau secret. La clé du tombeau, le sceau de Lothaire II, est en possession du douzième « apôtre », un prêtre, qui l'a récemment volé. Niémans tente de récupérer le sceau, mais les prêtres le devancent. Le tombeau avait été découvert par un officier allemand, Heinrich von Garten, pendant la guerre, durant des travaux dans les galeries de la ligne Maginot. Il tente maintenant de prendre possession du livre afin de créer une nouvelle Europe, blanche et chrétienne, en passant par la ligne Maginot. L'entrée originale du tombeau se trouvant dans le monastère, Niémans et Reda y pénètrent et tentent d'arrêter von Garten. Le socle sur lequel repose le livre est piégé, les galeries se remplissent d'eau et seuls Niémans et Reda parviennent à s'échapper. Le livre est détruit par l'eau.

Fifteenth volume in the Discworld series, Men at Arms has been published in 1993 by Terry Pratchett.

An explosion happens at the assassin's guild. A clown from the neighbour Fool's guild is found dead in the Ankh. A dwarf is found dead in his weaponmaking workshop with a hole instead of his chest. The Night Watch is investigating the case, augmented by three new members, representative of ethnic minorities: Detritus (a troll), Cuddy (a dwarf) and Angua (a woman, and a werewolf). And captain Sam Vimes is depressed because he's going to get married in a couple of days, forced to retire, and in top of that, Vetinari forbids him to investigate the deaths of the dwarf and the clown. The guards soon discover that something labeled “Gonne” has been stolen from the Assassin's Guild museum, that the dead clown has been seen leaving the Guild one day after his death, that the document found in the dwarf's workshop is the formula for a firework powder. While Cuddy and Detritus are investigating together, they are attacked by someone they couldn't see and trapped into a warehouse of future porks which is very cold, and makes Detritus much smarter than usual. Meanwhile, the maid of the head of the Beggar's Guild is killed by the same weapon as the dwarf. Later, Cuddy and Detritus, escaping an angry mob of dwarves and trolls, get lost in the sewers of the city and discover the body of the clown (except that it is not the clown but the thief of the gonne, wearing the same makeup as the clown's). At the same time, Carrot falls in love with Angua (although she's a werewolf and he hates the undead), and Vimes is completely depressed; the Watch then starts to rely on Carrot to take decisions, and since the Day Watch got the order to dismantle the Night Watch, Carrot organises a milicia and starts hiring many new recruits. The next day, Vimes is getting married, and but as the men of the milicia are guarding the surroundings. When the Patrician arrives to the wedding, he's attacked by the holder of the gonne who is shooting from the top of the Tower of the Arts. Cuddy, who had been sent to watch that place, is killed by the shooter. Vimes puzzles out that the killer is Dr. Cruces, the head of the Assassin's Guild (although the dwarf and the clown have been killed by Edward d'Eath, an assassin who wanted to restore the monarchy in Ankh-Morpork and kill all the heads of the guilds. He also discovered that Carrot is the heir of the royal family, whose last king had been killed by an ancestor of Vimes. He had taken the gonne from d'Eath and had been overpowered by the gonne's will to kill everyone). Carrot and Vimes finally meet Cruces in his office, and Carrot eventually kills him. Vimes gets married and becomes Commander of the Watch, Carrot is promoted Captain and the Night Watch is expanded and becomes the only Watch.