Lee
Guild of Calamitous Intent
Potato guns, the grocery store and the Fred's in the town we went to school in was constantly out of stock on Aquanet hairspray.
Buddy's dad had a hardware store and kept us in supply of PVC pipe and BBQ ignitiors.
Used our potato cannon knowledge and entered a high school physics contest for launching pingpong balls, rules said no incendiary or flammable means of pingpong ball launching so we turned to pneumatic. Made it to state and came in 3rd, 1st & 2nd teams didn't follow the rules, but our protests fell on deaf ears.
The pneumatic pingpong cannon lived on well into college. Launching any number of things that fit in the barrel at an number of targets.
The following is just theory, I can neither confirm nor deny:
A frozen little lime (key lime?) about the size of a ping pong launched at 125 psi from ~20' away will go through a cinder block wall.
A ping pong filled by syringe with water and launched at 45° angle at 150 psi will go over 200 yds. Orange ball appeared to still be climbing when it got too far away to see. Allegedly.
If you cram a potato down the barrel, basically just coring the potato with the barrel and launch said core straight up in the air at 125 psi, it takes long enough to return to earth to make you think it designated exiting the barrel. Then when you hear the whoosh and very loud splat on metal sound from the parking lot nextdoor you hide all evidence and find something else to do. Allegedly. The thoughts and confusion of whoever's car that potato landed on still make me chuckle, "What kind of bird **** on my car?" Allegedly.
Our chemistry teacher taught us that aluminum and HCL have an exothermic reaction. Fred's was also always out of aluminum foil and Works toilet bowl cleaner (cheapest they had). That's all you need to know about that.
Buddy's dad had a hardware store and kept us in supply of PVC pipe and BBQ ignitiors.
Used our potato cannon knowledge and entered a high school physics contest for launching pingpong balls, rules said no incendiary or flammable means of pingpong ball launching so we turned to pneumatic. Made it to state and came in 3rd, 1st & 2nd teams didn't follow the rules, but our protests fell on deaf ears.
The pneumatic pingpong cannon lived on well into college. Launching any number of things that fit in the barrel at an number of targets.
The following is just theory, I can neither confirm nor deny:
A frozen little lime (key lime?) about the size of a ping pong launched at 125 psi from ~20' away will go through a cinder block wall.
A ping pong filled by syringe with water and launched at 45° angle at 150 psi will go over 200 yds. Orange ball appeared to still be climbing when it got too far away to see. Allegedly.
If you cram a potato down the barrel, basically just coring the potato with the barrel and launch said core straight up in the air at 125 psi, it takes long enough to return to earth to make you think it designated exiting the barrel. Then when you hear the whoosh and very loud splat on metal sound from the parking lot nextdoor you hide all evidence and find something else to do. Allegedly. The thoughts and confusion of whoever's car that potato landed on still make me chuckle, "What kind of bird **** on my car?" Allegedly.
Our chemistry teacher taught us that aluminum and HCL have an exothermic reaction. Fred's was also always out of aluminum foil and Works toilet bowl cleaner (cheapest they had). That's all you need to know about that.




