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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Priceless entertainment, 28 Dec 2003
Durability:2.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars
Dads: Stuck inside on Christmas Day, tubes not running, no shops, no entertainment, no sign of life? Here is the answer to your Christmas prayers, and the kids will love it too. The Stomp Rocket is an absurdly simply concept - there's really nothing to it, the only wonder is no one's ever thought of it before. Is it educational? Sure - and how: If given the benefit of the full, concentrated force of father's 17 stone frame travelling downwards with gravity (accelerating at 10m/s2, so well worth experimenting by standing on chairs, ladders, launching from trampolines etc.), these little plastic rockets really will go MILES in the air and will (wind permitting) prescribe a perfect parabola, and the rocket flites are rifled, ensuring the cylinder rotates aerodynamically and thus attains greater distance and accuracy. There; you can't get much more educational than that - and this would be one physics lesson I'd happily repeat, day in day out, at least until the rockets had disappeared. And disappear they will, very quickly, either by attaining escape velocity and never returning to planet earth at all (Beagle 2 scientists, take note), or by falling apart. This is my only criticism - the whole thing is VERY flimsy indeed, and the rockets in particular will crack, the flites will fall off, and if you should sit on them, they're useless (there's a lesson in that, too!). I have seen a set of three replacement rockets advertised for £6, which is an abusrd price, given that they are just a plastic tube, a glued-on flight and a rubber nose. And there you have a further educational incentive - it would not be hard, and quite a bit of fun, I dare say, to make the rockets (or even the whole thing) yourself. Outstanding entertainment.
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