This step-by-step guide enables ordinary folks to construct 13 awesome ballistic devices using inexpensive household or hardware store materials. Clear instructions, diagrams, and photographs show how to build projects ranging from the simple, a match-powered rocket, to the more complex, a tabletop catapult, to the classic, the infamous potato cannon, to the offbeat, a Cincinnati fire kite. With a strong emphasis on safety, Backyard Ballistics also provides troubleshooting tips, explains the physics behind each project, and profiles such scientists and extraordinary experimenters as Alfred Nobel, Robert Goddard, and Isaac Newton, among others. This book will be indispensable for the legions of backyard toy-rocket launchers and fireworks fanatics who wish every day were the Fourth of July

Includes index.

1. Keeping safety in mind -- 2. The potato cannon -- 3. Back porch rocketry -- 4. The Cincinnati fire kite -- 5. Greek fire and the catapult -- 6. The tennis ball mortar -- 7. The flinger -- 8. Pnewton's petard -- 9. The dry cleaner bag balloon -- 10. The carbide cannon -- 11. The ballistic pendulum.