Remote Paper Air Rocket Laucher with ESP8266

Launch Paper Air Rockets Remotely from a Web Page

Paul McCabe

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Description

Several years ago we built a Paper Air Rocket launcher after seeing one in operation at Maker Faire in NYC. It uses a cheap electric sprinkler valve and two 9 Volt batteries in series connected to a simple switch with a long wire for launching. The air chamber is made of 2" PVC. We use a small electric air compressor set to 25 PSI to charge it although a bicycle pump can also be used. The rockets themselves are made from paper and masking tape and can fly a couple hundred feet. Since they're so light they simply float to the ground. In this project we'll replace the manual switch with an ESP8266 and a relay and use aREST from Marco Schwartz to control the launch remotely.https://cloud.arest.io/a78c36y/digital/5/1

Details

The Rocket can be launched from anywhere by typing the following command into a browser. This causes Pin 5 on the ESP8266 to go HIGH.
https://cloud.arest.io/a78c36y/digital/5/1

To reset the pin back to LOW to ready the next launch send:

https://cloud.arest.io/a78c36y/digital/5/0

We also controlled the rocket launch by creating an aREST Dashboard. Instructions on how to do this are here: https://arest.io/esp8266-arest-pro.

An iPhone app using Thunkable.com also worked but it's just a simple button that tells Pin 5 to go HIGH. More to follow on that.