This best-selling DIY handbook now features new & expanded projects enabling ordinary folks to construct 16 awesome ballistic devices in their garage or basement workshops using inexpensive household or hardware store materials & this step-by-step guide. Clear instructions diagrams & photographs show how to build projects ranging from the simple match-powered rocket to the more complex tabletop catapult & the offbeat Cincinnati fire kite. The classic potato cannon has a new evil twin -- the piezo-electric spud gun & the electromagnetic pipe gun has joined the company of such favourites as the tennis ball mortar. With a strong emphasis on safety the book also gives tips on troubleshooting explains the physics behind the projects & profiles scientists & extraordinary experimenters such as Alfred Nobel Robert Goddard & Isaac Newton. This book will be indispensable for the legions of backyard toy-rocket launchers & fireworks fanatics who wish every day was the fourth of July.