Descon Snowman

Scratch - Snowman {Scratch}

Contributed by Kathy Kippen

Manufacturer: Scratch

Snowman
by Kathy Miller

The idea of the Snowman rocket first came to me last winter around the Christmas holidays. I had contemplated a Christmas tree and thought "Too easy," then maybe a reindeer and thought "the antlers would be a problem". That was when I decided on a snowman.

Materials:

6-inch foam ball
4-inch foam ball
6-inch piece 24mm MMT tube
plastic NC to fit 24mm tube
corrugated cardboard for fins
18" piece of pink construction tape for streamer
12" piece of orange construction tape for scarf
soda straw for launch lug
18" Kevlar string for shock cord
construction paper for hat

The construction of the snowman was easy. All I did was take a six-inch piece of 24mm MMT tubing and insert it into the six-inch foam ball to act as both body tube and motor mount tube. Similarly, a standard plastic nosecone was pushed into the smaller four-inch foam ball.

Three 'shallow' fins were constructed of corrugated cardboard. I used a 3/16th launch rod to make a hole for the soda straw lug along the bt/mmt and continued up through the snowman's head. The shock cord was anchored into the tip of the nosecone with epoxy and attached in the standard Estes manner into the BT.

The 18-inch orange construction tape streamer was then attached to the shock cord to complete the basic design.  To "dress up" the snowman, I added a construction paper top hat and the 12-inch orange construction tape streamer for a scarf, drawing his face and other details on with magic marker.

A flight on a B6-4 sent him up about 80 feet. Although the streamer didn't fully unfurl, he did fly and landed softly on the ground intact ready to go again.

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