20 Replies to “Tooth Extraction With a Rocket”

  1. From the look of the kid’s mouth it’s the third or fourth attempt. 🙂

  2. Uh oh. They have the string going under his hand, so the tooth is actually pulled forward and down, rather than up as intended.

    Worked anyway, and didn’t go through his nose, so I guess all’s well that ends well.

    A lot safer than strapping the kid to a rocket and tying the string to a tree, for example.

  3. The tooth fairy will be visiting Dad when Mom finds out.
    BTW, If you’re thinking of trying this with wisdom teeth, then they couldn’t possibly be wisdom teeth.

  4. I posted this video on our popular planetarium Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ThinktankPlanet), but had to pull it in less than an hour because of comments such as these:

    “What kind of irresponsible person would let a child do that? That adult needs to be reported.”

    “Mmmm…a bit dodgy to promote this kind of thing, in my opinion. Thinktank – please think again?”

    “I’m not sure this is in the spirit of your usual interesting work. This child would not have thought to do this without coersion from the adult. Unlike.”

    Wow. I didn’t expect such a negative reaction. Is it a USA vs UK thing? I’m not British myself, and from where I come from, this is definitely not a risky excercise (the tooth was practically out!).

    What does the Universe Today community think?

  5. Compared to what I have seen on America’s Funniest Video’s, this is pretty tame.

    Hey, maybe that is a good idea. If you win, buy me a couple of the new Aerotech G80-10 motors with the cool blue flame!

  6. @ThinktankPlanet

    I also think this is innocent fun, a lot of people are way too over protective and pc about stuff these days.

    This kid also has got a first hand experience in rockets in a fun way which may lead to a life long interest, who knows he may even be the next von braun.

  7. This is exactly the kind of playful attitude that needs to be applied to spreading the interest in engineering and science among kids. You can bet this boy is not going to forget that experience and from the look of it his little brother might have gotten something out of this too. Risky enough to be a lot of fun (for kids of all ages) and safe enough to be no more danger then going to school every morning. And just wait till little Jimmy meets his buddies – boy does he have something cool to tell them. Only narrow minded fun killers would object. This video gave me the biggest smile of the past few weeks at the very least. Wonderful.

    /hydrazine

  8. Good stuff! Not much danger involved IMHO. And yes, the british have pretty nasty teeth as a whole. This was just a kid that is losing his baby teeth and yep, he looks pretty rough lol!

  9. What’s so funny about child endangerment by drunk or stoned adults? Stupid human trick? What was that string? Floss? Coulda flossed an eye? Solid DUH vote from these quarters… Bad human… sit…..eye poked out by rocket, no fun…. Me personally? I like kids.. somewhat from a distance and as long as they are someone else’s…and are down wind.

  10. That kid has guts. I think it’s a very awesome way to extract a tooth, and get kids interesting in cool stuff like rockets. (What’s not cool about a rocket, anyway?)

  11. I also love how the kid in the background is still holding his hands to his ears way after the rocket launches!

  12. I find nothing funny about this. Silly, perhaps. I’d put it in a list along with the 50,000th instance of Mentos+Diet Coke video, which for some reason a lot of people found (find?) to be funny.

    And this is a fun way to teach science to kids? Give me a break! Get some fresh air and get creative.

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