Did your brother/cousin/“best friend” ever try to pull
out your loose tooth by tying a string from the tooth
to a doorknob and slamming the door? Well, here’s the
modern version of that, I guess. It involves rocketry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPhRiaNW4UQ
Yeah, no way that can go wrong.
When our kids were in that age range, we had one of those rockets which we launched, once, from the middle of the school playground. A good sized field. Up it went, got caught by a crosswind, and we never saw it again. There was no tooth involved. The potato cannon Jeff made “with” and for the benefit of our son out of pvc plumbing (supervision definitely required) was a better bet, and made it through multiple potato launches.
Should have tried that with our old pumpkin chunkin trebuchet! Anybody got a spare kid?
That happens a lot. I lost count of how many of
mine landed on the roof of some school building.
You just keep making them and launching them
until it gets too boring or expensive.
I went to Space Academy in Huntsville, Ala.
when I was in the 8th grade (it’s the Middle
and High School version of Space Camp). Yes,
I know, my nerd-fu is strong. One of the
projects was building a 2-stage model rocket
as a team from an Estes kit. Since I’d done
that on my own many times, I got the team
to do it by the book. It was a nice one, with
all the tricks the instructions didn’t include,
like running a bead of glue where the fin meets
the body to increase aerodynamicism. The
other teams got a little more… creative.
The next day we went to the launch field. In the
middle of the field, there was a large wood-and-
glass barrier behind which stood the team that
was currently launching. Everyone else was a
good 200 feet away. We soon saw why such
precautions were necessary. All those creative
builds went crazy-go-nuts on launch. Some took
90 degree turns and buzzed the crowd. Some
went straight into the ground and exploded. My
teams’ rocket went straight as an arrow, reached
its zenith several hundred feet in the air, properly
deployed its 'chute, was caught by the wind, and
disappeared over the horizon. It might have landed
in Dale’s backyard for all I know. Best launch I ever
had, and naught to show for it afterwards…
I’m glad I finally have a kid so I have an excuse
to get into Water Rockets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket
My son (the one that fixed F18 engines for four years) also was into model rockets (and radio controlled airplanes and radio controlled nitro cars). His “thing” with the rockets was to see just how BIG of a payload he could fit into one.
We also lost a lot of rockets…
I used to shoot rockets for scaring wildlife from fields, thousands. Ours were designed to go a few hundred feet and explode. I’d pull up at the farmers field take my launching wire, stick it in the ground, aim it, slide a rocket on and light the sixty second fuse. After a while birds would become habituated so I’d fly them a little more horizontally so they exploded closer to the ground.
We got hand held water rockets for the boys when they were younger and then made our own as they got older, those are great fun.
That’s pretty badass.
awwww 
I wasn’t as creative as them. I just twisted my teeth until they came out. I wish I would have done something cool like that. The coolest way I ever lost a tooth was when I was on the playground, and a kid was running around with his eyes closed. He ran head-first into my face and knocked out one of my teeth. And the closest thing I ever had to a rocket like that was a bottle rocket.
My older brothers were in the rocket club at school, so I was in the rocket club. They explained that it was a way to get out of classes for a day. I built the most easiest rockets with the fin assembly all completed. The only thing that I liked about rockets was watching the parachute open.
In one of my first social work jobs, I had a boss who was absolutely bonkers over the idea that boys could get their act together through model rocketry. The women in the agency just weren’t getting behind this idea. Finally, when I came along, I said that I knew how to build and shoot rockets. This was as succesful as it could be with one boy. He did behave himself in school all week to shoot rockets on Fridays. Then the boss started going all bonkers over the idea that boys could get their acts together through rapeling, white water rafting, and archery. This didn’t seem to get the boss’s act together. I passed.
Oh. . . my. . . god! That. . . was absolutely BRILLIANT!!!
You know, I’m pretty sure my nephew has a couple lose teeth. Gotta go make a phone call.