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| james_s:
Doesn't seem all that long ago but it was a different world back then. We had an archery unit in physical education in grades 7/8/9 too. They actually handed bows and sharp metal tipped arrows out to 13-15 year olds out on the athletic field at school and we got to shoot them at targets tacked to hay bails, this was in the suburbs too, not out in the boonies. I remember more than once when the teacher wasn't looking I shot one up into the air and it came down waaay off the field in the woods somewhere. I'd be shocked if they still have that, although it was a lot of fun and to my knowledge nobody ever got hurt any more than the occasional getting snapped in the arm by a bowstring or a feather cut to the finger. |
| vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on December 01, 2021, 09:04:54 pm --- --- Quote from: james_s on December 01, 2021, 06:14:30 pm --- --- Quote from: EEVblog on November 30, 2021, 09:48:46 am --- --- Quote from: strawberry on November 29, 2021, 12:31:26 pm ---video about making 80's macgyver style bomb --- End quote --- I've actually made one, here is photo of me constructing it. Actually, I had to make a 2nd one, because the first blomb got washed away in a flood. It happens. --- End quote --- I still remember when I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade back in the 80s my friend and I made a fake bomb out of some clay and wires and batteries and a calculator and stuff and we were playing with it outside during recess. A teacher caught us with it and we got lectured for wasting school supplies. I shudder to think what would happen today, they'd probably overreact to the max and call in the swat team and charge us with terrorism. --- End quote --- Ha. Wasting school supplies. --- End quote --- Back in the day-----way, way, back, when my Dad was a kid, he lived in the WA Goldfields. The standard miner's lamp back then, was an acetylene lamp, which produced the gas by a reaction between calcium carbide (CaC2) & water. They were commonly called "carbide lamps", & calcium carbide was shortened to "carbide". As, by itself, "carbide" was relatively benign, it wasn't kept locked away, & kids could readily purloin some for their own "scientific" experiments. Thus, it came to pass, that Dad, (being a little shit at the time), put some water & carbide in an old fashioned lemonade bottle. These had a glass sphere (commonly called a marble) inside which normally sealed the neck of the bottle in its intended usage. The acetylene pressure forced the marble up into the neck, sealing it. Further pressure rise eventually shattered the bottle in an explosive release of energy. After testing this in an isolated spot, where it went off with a pleasing "bang", he & his mates looked round for a more satisfying place to use this interesting phenomenon. It just so happens that during lunch period at school, the teacher would enjoy a few nips of the brandy bottle he kept in his desk drawer. The kids thought this would be an appropriate use for their infernal device, so timing it just right, rolled the lemonade bottle under the school floor to close to where he was enjoying his midday "reviver". There was a blinding flash, a huge "ka-boom", & an ashen faced teacher emerged from the school! There never was any real danger, as the sturdy floor was made of sterner stuff than the device could damage, but it is said the teacher "signed the pledge!" It seems that such childhood "ratbaggery" didn't die out over 80 or so years, just shifted countries, as in the following: A few years ago, I was talking to a young EE, who spent his childhood years in Vietnam, after their war. There was still a lot of unexploded ordnance from the hostilities lying around the bush, & him & his mates used to open up those they could to use the guts in fireworks! Wonder the mad young buggers didn't blow themselves up. |
| rsjsouza:
--- Quote from: james_s on December 01, 2021, 10:56:47 pm ---Doesn't seem all that long ago but it was a different world back then. --- End quote --- The things my brother and I used to do with our friends were unthinkable nowadays - and we weren't really considered rambunctious, just ordinary kids. And yet here we are, eyewitnesses of yet another tectonic shift in the world, where a sneeze on a crowded area now has the potential to cause panic and possible vitriolic reactions against the "perpetrator". |
| Cerebus:
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on December 02, 2021, 01:20:14 am ---As, by itself, "carbide" was relatively benign, it wasn't kept locked away, & kids could readily purloin some for their own "scientific" experiments. --- End quote --- More than that, you could go and buy it down the local bicycle shop as carbide lamps for bicycles was still a 'thing'. A bike shop near me still had old stock of carbide into the early seventies (1970s. not 1870s :)). |
| penfold:
--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 02, 2021, 03:07:55 pm --- --- Quote from: vk6zgo on December 02, 2021, 01:20:14 am ---As, by itself, "carbide" was relatively benign, it wasn't kept locked away, & kids could readily purloin some for their own "scientific" experiments. --- End quote --- More than that, you could go and buy it down the local bicycle shop as carbide lamps for bicycles was still a 'thing'. A bike shop near me still had old stock of carbide into the early seventies (1970s. not 1870s :)). --- End quote --- With no comments on how far behind the times some areas of the UK are... ahem... it was available until quite recently from a few caving and underground exploration paraphernalia shops in and around Buxton and Derbyshire... I guess it is a chemical that is more difficult to qualify as 'safe' than to simply restrict the purchase of. |
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