Programme Outline

Up in his bedroom, Guy designs a rocket on his laptop computer. It's in three sections: a tail fin, a middle section and a nose cone. Later, he mixes epoxy glue to fix cardboard rings to a thick cardboard tube. He adds fins and a nose cone. Out in the garden, he uses an electric sander to smooth down the middle section of the rocket. He hangs all the rocket parts on garden canes so that he can spray paint them.

Guy fixes a parachute to one section of the rocket. The parachute is folded up and stored away inside the tube.

On a big, empty playing-field, Guy sets up the rocket for launch. Inside the nose cone, he puts a device for measuring how high the rocket goes. He attaches the rocket motor, stands back at a safe distance and begins the countdown. 'Three, two, one … blast off!'

The rocket streaks away into the summer sky. Guy watches as it reaches its highest point, then falls back to Earth, slowed by the parachute. The rocket is broken into sections by the landing, but the measuring device is safe. Guy connects it to his laptop. A graph shows the path, or trajectory, of the rocket's flight. It reached a height of 250m. How high will Guy's next rocket reach?