Ever had an argument over which model rocket is faster? Or which flies higher, or the longest?

Build your own drag racing cable and find out, once and for all. This cable will basically enable you to launch two rockets at once. Needless to say, you will need two launch pads, rockets, and launch supplies for two rockets.

Granted, you can race rockets using two launch controllers, however, that leaves reaction time, human error or plain cheating. All elements which could give one rocketeer an advantage over the other.

With this cable, you push one button on a single controller to launch both rockets simultaneously. The concept is pretty much the same as using clip whips for clustering.

List Of Required Parts

You'll need a few parts to build the cable. All are items that you should be able to find at any hardware store.

- 10' of 24/2 insulator wire (speaker wire) - 2 pairs of (insulated) aligator clips - 2 terminal crimps - electrical tape - solder

To make the cable, you'll also need some basic tools : a soldering iron, a wire splitter, and a wire cutter.

Build Your Rocket Racing Cable

To keep things organized, we'll always connect the nickel conductor wire to the positive (red) parts (crimp & alligator clips). Flat jaws can also be used instead of alligator clips.

Start by cutting the insulator wire in two halves of equal lenght. Seperate the two wires (copper & nickel) on one side of each wire, up to about 2 inches. Strip 3/4" on all 4 separated wire ends. Twist the nickel and copper exposed ends for both wires together. Tie a knot in both wires, slighly past where you seperated the wires. This will keep the two insulator wires together.

Plug in the soldering iron, and once hot, solder the crimps onto the wires. Looks like I got too much solder on there. Soldering is not my thing. You may want to wrap some electrical tape around the wire/crimp joints. These crimps is where you'll hook up your rocket launch controller clips.

Separate the conductors on each of the insulator wires up to about 3". Strip 3/4" on each conductor. You should have two sets of what you see in the image. Put a knot behind each pair of the separated wires and slide the alligator clips covers into place.

Slide the aligator clips onto each wire, one pair per insulator wire. Make sure the exposed ends are located where they can be soldered onto the clips easily. Solder the aligator clips into place. Once the solder and clips cool down, wrap some electrical tape around the aligator clip/wire joints. Slide the aligator clip covers onto the clips and you're all done.

Now that you have your own model rocket drag racing cable, prepare two rockets for launch as you usually would. Set each on their own launch pad. Attach one pair of the alligator clips to each igniter. Attach your launch controller to the pair of crimps and check for continuity. Verify conditions are safe for launch and initiate countdown procedures.

How To Have Fun With It

This project is fun to either race your own rockets or one of yours and a friend's. You can compete for speed, altitude or even duration of flight. Not the competitive type? No problem. Simply use this cable for added fun and excitement. Seeing two rockets jump of two launch pads at once is lots of fun, even without a competition.

The same concept can be used to race more than two model rockets. Make sure your launch controller has enough power to set off all igniters at once. Using a 12V powered controller would be a good idea.

Safety is always important, so be safe. This is even more the case when launching two (or more) model rockets at once.