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A vinegar and baking soda rocket uses carbon dioxide from a chemical reaction to push the lid off a small film canister and launch a lightweight paper rocket. Make:’s project uses household materials and gives an estimated build time of 15–30 minutes; that estimate and its “easy” difficulty rating are the page’s, not independent test results.
What you need
- Plastic film canister
- 8½ × 11-inch sheet of construction paper
- Tape
- Vinegar
- Baking soda
- Bottle cap
- Scissors
- Optional: paint or markers for decoration
These materials and the build instructions come from William Anderson’s Make: project, originally published December 18, 2012 and updated July 15, 2022: Vinegar and Baking Soda Rocket.
How to make the rocket
- Wrap the construction paper around the film canister to make the rocket body. Keep the canister’s open end exposed so its lid can release.
- Shape paper into a cone and attach it to the end opposite the canister opening.
- Make fins from paper and tape them to the rocket body if you want them; the project describes fins as optional.
- Decorate the paper with paint or markers if desired.
How the vinegar and baking soda launch it
Vinegar and baking soda react to produce carbon dioxide. As gas accumulates inside the closed canister, pressure forces the lid off. The escaping gas and lid provide the impulse that launches the lightweight rocket. The lid is therefore the pressure-release part of the design, not a component to reinforce or restrain.
Loading and launching
Anderson’s example uses one teaspoon of baking soda placed inside the lid and vinegar filling the inverted canister about halfway. These are the author’s example amounts, not a tested universal ratio or standardized charge; the project does not establish a pressure threshold or validated launch procedure.
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- Prepare the rocket outdoors, away from people and property.
- Load the baking soda and vinegar using conservative quantities. Avoid overfilling; Anderson describes a canister exploding in his hands after an overfill mishap.
- Close the canister, set the rocket down promptly, and move away. Do not hold it while the reaction builds pressure.
- Watch from a safe position. Make:’s article does not specify a formal safe distance, so do not treat any particular distance as a tested guarantee.
Anderson’s guidance is: “Please, launch the rocket outdoors to prevent it from hitting someone or his/her property.” This is the project author’s advice, not a formal safety standard.
How this differs from a water rocket
Make: also describes a reusable water rocket, but it is a different design: water is expelled from a beverage bottle pressurized by a pump and PVC launcher. The vinegar-and-baking-soda project instead generates gas chemically inside a small canister. The equipment and propulsion systems are not interchangeable, and the sources provide no controlled comparison of their altitude, cost, or safety.
Rank #2
What to expect from its flight
The paper-and-canister project does not report a measured flight height. A separate Make: article relays designer Ben’s report of an approximately 30-foot flight for a different, 3D-printed vinegar-and-baking-soda rocket; that individual result is not a measurement or expected altitude for this paper design: the separate 3D-printed rocket report.
Quick Recap
Rank #3
- Build and Launch a Rocket
- Powered by Baking Soda and Vinegar
- Use it over and over again
- S.T.E.M- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
- Age 8 and Up
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