NPL’s Water Rocket Competition
A team of Scouts comprising Jack O, Will H, Ben T and Tom H being the designers and constructors of the best water rocket at troop nights, represented us at the above competition. This was an excellent evening with beautiful weather and despite feeling somewhat intimidated by the size and complexity of the competition we did ourselves proud with our basic (but efficient) launcher and single-stage rocket.
Apart from recording the longest time the rocket stayed in the air, the object is to land your rocket in a 10m wide zone some 65 metres away which gives 30 bonus seconds. There were adjoining 15m wide landing zones in front and behind the target zone giving an additional 15 and 20 seconds respectively. With our first launch, we pressurised the rocket to 60psi before pulling the release and were rewarded with a beautifully parabolic flight which flew over the main target zone, landing in the next one over. 50psi saw our second flight also just overfly the main target zone, but our third shot at 45psi landed spot on.
We didn’t win any awards on the night but are reasonably sure that we embarrassed quite a few much more professional looking outfits. For full results when published and photos etc, please follow this link. Thanks to Fiona and Darrell for being there ‘just in case’ and to all our supporters.