Toilet Tissue Rockets
In late 2012, the twins entered space age -- they became absolutely fanatic about rockets, space shuttles and lunar landers. For months, virtually not a single day passed on which we didn't have to watch at least one rocket launch on one of the big video portals. Consequently, the second English phrase the boys' learned right after "Happy birthday" was "Three, two, one, ignition... and lift off!".
In order to (literally) get a better grasp of what could be seen on the screen, we just had to get some hands-on rockets. In this respect, the cylindrical cores of empty toilet tissues rolls proved beneficial when wrapped within self-made cut-out sheets, which not only gave the rocket models a pleasant and realistic appearance, but also allowed for jettisoning stages. The fun even increasesd further after building launch pads out of plastic building blocks (of a well-known brand).
The sheets were drawn using the free vector graphics software Inkscape. The individual stages' rectangular wrappings were designed for rolls with a diameter of 4.2 cm (corresponds to a circumfence of 13.2 cm) and a length of approx. 10 cm; for other dimensions, just grab the rectangles in Inkscape and resize as appropriate. The unwrapped nose cones come with some buffer area which may be used for fitting them to rolls with larger diameter.
A final hint: The connecting part, which for upper stages extends downward beyond the roll's rim, should be stabilised with one or two windings of adhesive tape!
Donwload:
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rockets_01.pdf 2 MB
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rockets_01.zip 65 KB