AquaPod Original Rocket Bottle Launcher Kit

This was a great find on Amazon! It shipped fast, it saved me time building one of these things, it was inexpensive and most importantly, it worked! I wanted this tool to show my science class the relationship between pressure and volume. They all made their own bottle rockets and had a lot of fun with his thing! There are only a couple of minor things that anyone buying this needs to be aware of; 1. The clip at the end of the pull string is not durable and it breaks/ malfunctions after many launches and 2. You have to keep track of the black "o" ring(s) that come included with this kit. Those "o" rings are essential when creating a sealed system for the bottles and if it gets lost during all of the fun, you won't be doing any further launching. When you work with teenagers like I do, those two mishaps I just mentioned can easily occur! This thing is great and I highly recommend it.

So fun!! This thing shoots really high. We love it!

This is a really fun toy. Kids should be supervised by competent adult. All good except the black rubber O ring shifts from the seated position and quickly fails. I am trying to find replacement O rings! Help!

This would have been season 6 for our Aquapod. I purchased it in 2015 and we've launched it hundreds of times each year. We've definitely surpassed 1000 launches and I wouldn't be surprised if we have over 2000 launches on this bad boy. But alas, all good things come to an end and sadly, this year its plastic frame succumbed to fatigue as can be seen in the accompanying photo. It's understandably the weak spot. I see other reviews where people are timidly pumping it up to 40 psi, etc. As Brian Wilson famously said once, "Not my boys!" We pump it until the pressure relief valve kicks in. Max pressure! Is a design revision in order? Maybe. Maybe the mold could be augmented along the edge where ours eventually cracked. But we extracted full value and then some from the Aquapod. As a father, I've been to every one of my 6 kids' elementary school classes demonstrating Newton's Laws with the Aquapod. For the older classes, I made up an experimental project where we varied the volume of water in the bottle and the pressure and estimate height with a few kids spotting the angle when the bottles reached apogee. You could spend a solid week teaching with the Aquapod. Without fail, when we break out the Aquapod a crowd gathers. It doesn't matter the age, the Aquapod sucks people in like flies to excrement. My kids got such a kick out of our 85 yo retired engineer neighbor acting like he was 12 playing with this thing. Needless to say, I'm writing this review because I came back to buy it again. Can't wait for the new one to arrive in the mail!

This was for my granddaughter's birthday, and she and her dad LOVE it. They have a large backyard for shooting it up into the air. You need to have a hand bicycle pump, which they did. They actually had two and found one pump worked far better than the other, as one kept slipping off as it was being pumped up (the fault of the pump, not the toy). I had an empty, clean 2-Liter bottle packaged with the gift, along with a brand new set of tennis balls. It is great fun putting items on top of the bottle and launching the two items together. The balls soar into the sky and are more fun to chase and retrieve than the bottle itself. But, we found that smaller balls, like their racket ball, worked better. They also had a small glow-in-the-dark ball that was lots of fun at dusk. She even launched some small, cute, rubbery toy animals atop the bottle and they really flew! But, I will say that balls are best, as when they land on a roof, they roll off, while the toys just sit up there! We did follow the suggestion of putting olive oil around the bottle opening to make it slip on quickly and tightly. We also discovered it was far faster having TWO 2-Liter bottles so granddaughter would be filling one while dad retrieved the other (or vice versa). We also marked on the bottles the water level needed so that the granddaugher (age 9) could fill the 1/3 level more quickly on her own. We used this on the ground with the anchor hooks provided and had no problem.

The kiddos can not get enough of the Aquapod. Only used it a couple of different times however many lift-offs each time. Fun for the adults to try to catch the bottle with the kids as well. We have yet to catch one however keep getting very close! A great addition to outdoor activities. The price tag is a bit steep however keep in mind that there isn't anything other than a 2 liter bottle that you need to purchase for ongoing fun. I use a small air compressor tank that I fill with air and have not yet run the small tank empty. Only takes 50psi to launch and the unit has a feature that expels any additional air you might pump into it so that it won't overfill. Nice feature to keep people from breaking it. There is also a metal stake that comes with the unit. The stake goes over the Aquapod to secure it to the ground so that the person pulling the trigger string can't accidentally pull the unit over and shoot a bottle at themselves or someone else. I also highly recommend an adult be present as it does lift off with a good amount of force. It could certainly hurt someone if used improperly.

Watched a video on the product & inventors, seemed well thought out. During use noticed some significant shortcomings. Agree with other reviewer, not stable, can tip over while pulling release cord, bottle can then launch horizontally, not good. What I like: Durable construction, bright color, good labeling, long launch cord, good release mechanism , 2 extra rubber O rings included. What I do not like: potentially tippy depending on surface placed on and type of 2-liter bottle used. Bottle neck rings vary; the larger rings need release bar "snapped" or pushed on, thus harder pull to release. Also not stable due to limited ground contact with the hard plastic feet. Front are angled and arched, back is arched, thus VERY limited area actually touching the ground! NOT recommended for hard surfaces! I will be making some L shaped ground stakes to hold this thing down in the grass, they really should be included with the product. Strongly suggest changing the foot design, rubber bottoms for hard surfaces or small spikes for lawns would be perfect, 4 feet would be even better. Could use an air feed extension tube like competitive products have to be at a safe distance while pumping air. A tip: I highly recommend using lubrication on the rubber O ring, a light coat of vegetable or olive oil works great, first attempt with out oil the bottle collapsed while pushing it on.

Definitely worth the money

My partner and bonus daughter loves it! Easy and simple to set up.

Muy buen producto y fácil de utilizar.

My boys absolutely love this. So much fun

Muy fácil y muy entretenido. tal vez le faltaría una especie de seguro para que no se active accidentalmente el gatillo.

Me gusto mucho el producto, pero llego sin la cuerda para jalarlo ni los empaques "o"rings de repuesto. Tuve que improvisar una cuerda con un mecate...