Dolphin Rocket

• Built an experimental bottle rocket for a 9th grade human geography project
• Drew inspiration from learning about Apollo and early space history
• Iterated from unstable early launches to the Dolphin 5 design with fins and a brick launchpad
• Turned the project into a documentary-style video around the October 2014 launches
• Watch the Dolphin Rocket documentary

Project

Dolphin Rocket was a 9th grade bottle-rocket project that grew from a class presentation idea into a miniature aerospace program. I was learning about Apollo and early space history at the time, and that context made the project feel bigger than a one-off school build. The point was not just to launch a bottle rocket; it was to document an engineering campaign with tests, redesigns, countdowns, and a mission goal.

The first version had obvious problems, especially unstable launches. We simplified the design, built a brick launchpad, added fins, and eventually arrived at Dolphin 5. That version was launched outside the school while classmates watched from third-story classroom windows.

The Documentary

The video is the centerpiece of this project because it captures the way I understood engineering then: a low-budget MythBusters x October Sky crossover, with real iteration, dramatic narration, and an earnest attempt to make a school project feel like spaceflight history.

The documentary follows the team from the first planning conversation through multiple test launches. After the school launch, the project escalated into a new goal: launch a roly poly over 50 feet in the air and recover it safely. Two smaller tuna-fish rockets were used for experiments before the final Dolphin 5 attempt on October 31, 2014.

The final credits name the Dolphin Team as Mark Valdez, Matthew Hale, Jacob Valdez, Isaac Valdez, and Hunter Hill; Senior Dolphin Advisors Vincent Valdez, John Redoch, and Kerry Kuck Kuck; and interviewees Daniel Mathison, Mrs. Johnson, Scott Warren, Andrea Kline, Matt Coker, T. Snook, Mr. Snook, Austin Gaines, Chase Weisbrow, Hunter Hill, Tyler Fischer, and Jacob Valdez.

Result

Dolphin Rocket ended as a working physical prototype, a sequence of test launches, a final mission attempt, and a documentary artifact. The engineering was primitive, but the pattern was important: set a goal, test quickly, redesign around failures, make the result legible to an audience, and preserve the project in a format other people could understand.