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When making a two-bottle rocket, you'll cut one end off the bottle
that will eventually be the front of the rocket. Kids naturally tend
to cut off the bottom, keeping the cap end to make the front of their
rocket more pointy. Their intuition is that a pointed front will make
their rocket more aerodynamic.
For a supersonic jet that would be right - you would want the front
pointy. But for these rockets a rounded front is actually better.
Think of a submarine, or Boeing jet - the front is rounded, and the
rear is pointed. So I recommend cutting off the cap end, as shown
in the picture.
If you'd cut off the original bottom, then the you'll have the cap
end at the tip of the rocket, with screws and a lip
that would cause vortices, and are poor aerodynamically.
Rockets that keep the original bottom are also more durable.
When a rocket comes back down it flips over,
and a pointed tip gets crushed into the body of the rocket.
Keeping the round end is safer; the pointy end is much harder, and comes down like a spear.
The front end isn't perfectly rounded. You can use duct tape
to round off the top, optionally with playdoh underneath.
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