What's your idea of the absolute minimum age you would let a young boy participate in model rocketry with adult oversight, obviously?

I would say eight or nine, possibly ten depending upon the maturity level of the child.

2 with supervision and supervision means supervision, not just “watching” I was building and playing with them at age 11 without supervision. The “bazooka” we made using them drew a watchful eye though.

2 as in two years old?

Hummpphhh! Well, look at the name!!!!

laughs, GA. It’s Friday. I need more coffee.

I would say 7 years old as that was the age of the boys in their first year of Cub Scouts when they build and launched rockets. At least in scouting the kids were well schooled in the hazards and dangers of launching actual rockets and we had the electronic firing devices that allowed the kids to be well away from the rockets when they were launched. I feel at 7 years old, the kids are old enough to better appreciate dangers associated with launching rockets when instructed properly. Younger kids can watch but I would not let them participate in the launch phase.

Model rocketry is a blast (pun intended) and some of the most fun I had with my boys especially when they got older and we built and launched some of the larger scale model rockets. The ones that can take pictures are way cool to launch.

With actual hand-holding? Whenever the kid is old enough to follow instructions. I mean, my kid helped me build fires at less than two, so I might not be the best litmus test… haha

If there’s not much supervision at home, could the gift of this interesting hobby be contingent on happening with you? You keep all the materials and do all of the teaching and supervising. Could be a terrific mentoring experience.

I’d say age 7, depending, of course, on the maturity level of the young one.

We had the kids in my son’s Cub Scout den make and launch rockets (with lots of supervision) when they were in second grade. The boys loved it, so did their sisters.

If you think he can handle the building portion (and it seems like you do), you give him the rocket.

Whoever is the most responsible in the household gets the engines and ignitors.

Just adding: before we ever got into the typical model rockets, my dad made a pretty awesome home made water rocket with two liter bottles and a home made launcher with a foot pump. We modified that thing until it was running with an automatic pump, pressure gauge, parachute return and at least 3 different rocket designs.

Then we got to move on to fire ;)

They have water rocket kits and ready made plastic ones that would make great gifts without all the explosive possibilities.

@funkdaddy Hmm, interesting and should be safer. I’ll look into it.

My immediate thought was about 7–8. I think it’s a great idea @Adirondackwannabe. It will be fun for you both.

I think he’d pick up some idea of the priniples at that age. He’s more at the just make it go age right now. The consensous seems pretty consistent.

If he has good fine motor skills, can follow instructions, and knows the seriousness of what he’s doing then that probably matters more than age. Every kid has a different maturity level at each age. You know your kid the best so you should be the one making the call. :)

2 yes, I remember dad playing with them as some of my first memories. I remember pushing the button to set off the igniters. I’m not actually saying hand them the thing, just getting them involved.

I don’t draw such hard-and-fast rules simply because there are some adults I wouldn’t trust with a limp spaghetti noodle, and others who were like I was and learned many things much earlier than most people do. For instance, many adults are irresponsible with handguns, but my father taught me to always treat a firearm as loaded unless/until verified empty (bolt/slide back, magazine removed if possible…), how to verify a gun is empty, and to NEVER point a loaded gun at anything/anyone that you are not ready, willing, and able to utterly and irrevocably destroy. I understood those lessons, though I wasn’t allowed to fire a gun for a few more years; the average pistol is a bit large and heavy for a three-year-old to handle safely regardless.

With that in mind, you might guess (and correctly so) that I may allow a kid to do the rocketry thing at a younger age than others would even remotely think of possibly considering. You can’t always measure competence by counting candles on a cake.

Can he handle the disappointment of losing one or having the engine eject instead of the parachute and stuffing itself into the ground?

I was about 12 when I started being really bad with them. I passed the string of a high flying kite through the launch lugs and fired it off with cannon fuse. Trailing a cloud of smoke it zoomed up the string like a wire guided TOW missile and blew the kite out of the sky. It was great!

@jerv Those same adults you wouldn’t trust with a wet Kleenex are usually in the top 10 of the Darwin Awards

With adult supervision, I still couldn’t guess because there’s tremendous variation among kids. I strongly believe Seek is correct in the fact that no harm is gonna come to exposing a young kid to any sort of wonder as long as a responsible adult looks on.

@Cruiser More like “Top 10,000,000”, but I’ll admit that I do have trust issues. The fact that I would potentially trust a 2 year old with a model rocket before I would trust many adults with a plastic spork should tell you my opinions on people.

When I was in the seventh grade I took a class that was called something like small engine repair. First thing we did in the class was being given a lawnmower engine that the teacher had sabotaged. Then we learned about how engines worked and had to rebuild the engine. Every last screw was removed and we had to put it back together. mine never started

Second part of the class was being handed a block of wood and making a CO2 powered car. Bandsaws, lathes, and drill presses, oh my.

Third part of the class was model rockets. We got little five dollar Estes kits and went nuts.

Apparently the school district was fine with us making the rockets and shooting them off in the football field.

However. If we all had cell phones with cameras in 1990 we would have probably thought we would get tons of likes for shooting the rocket at the teacher. And some idiot would have done it.

And the small engines class was probably the most fun I ever had in Jr High.

Yes! Seventh and eighth grade shop class was the best! Welders and routers and blowtorches. Woot!

@johnpowell That sounds like a fantastic class! Most people have no idea what’s inside an engine. We never had the chance
We only made things. I made a house sign.