young tinkerer

mommicked

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Dec 15, 2009
Messages
1,700
a good one.A good friends young son is a tinkerer 11,he has disasembeled several soft air guns and replaced or stretched,the spring inside to make them shoot further,among other things.dads proud.recently he made a bomb out of 2 liter bottle w amonia?or baking soda and tinfoil?cant remember seen it done w Mentos on tv.anyway he talks to his schoolteacher about it and she thinks its a neet project/experiment so he takes one to school and the class goes outside to see it in action.ON THE FRONT STEPS OF THE SCHOOL!he suggests the playground out back, but the teacher says no lets do it out front.so everyone stands back,he puts the cap on and momments later BOOM.The local police happen to be driving by and are not nearly immpressed as the rest of the class and teacher! officer calls the father and begins to question him about his son and the incident but did not immediatly identify himself,dad goes into an explicitive "who the he.. are you to bla bla" w much more explicitives, response to questions and tells him he thought it was a bad idea,but the teacher was all for it so he thought it must be ok.about 5 mins and finally the officer says "Sir IM...... w the....police dept".OOOPS!he did not encourage this,and no kids were hurt by the thing.I told him you better hope he dosnt pull you over IM sure he knows your name.the FBI probly knows your name!these things are not as dangerous as it sounds,just pretty loud.and he is a great father.
 

Vlad D Impeller

Commander
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Mar 30, 2005
Messages
2,644
Re: young tinkerer

A teacher with poor judgment, and a Barney Fife character, i'd say the kids were entertained.

Edited due to the fact that i incorrectly missed where the OP stated that the dad was called by the cop. He did not used expletives in the presence of kids.
 
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Link

Rear Admiral
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Apr 13, 2003
Messages
4,221
Re: young tinkerer

A teacher with poor judgment, a chickenspit father and a Barney Fife character, i'd say the kids were (R-Rated) entertained.

Well I dont agree with you on all things.
Teacher: Poor judgment yes, should have been in the empty play ground.
Dad: Not sure
Cop? He is supposed to respond!

But I'm 57 years old and several years ago I saw the Mentos / Pepsi thing.
As did my my grandkids.
Myth Busters.

Not knowing it we both tried it. (Grandkids and daughter)

The next step is how to turn it into a bomb.
Everyone likes to things explode.

Link
 

Vlad D Impeller

Commander
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Mar 30, 2005
Messages
2,644
Re: young tinkerer

An officer of the law, who it seems did not fully take command and control of a situation in which he saw fit to intervene. How cool is that?

(Edited due to my error in suggesting that the dad was present during the incident)
 
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mommicked

Lieutenant Commander
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Dec 15, 2009
Messages
1,700
Re: young tinkerer

dad was at home on the phone w the officer.after 3/5 mins of dad going off he told him he was officer (insert name) w the (insert name police dept.dad asked why he didnt tell him sooner, He may have been more courtious!the officer said because you wouldnt shut the he.. up!dad opalagized,and explained he told the teacher before the incident he did not like the idea,but the teacher thought it was a great idea.like a chemistry experiment.and assured him it would be ok.Im not condoneing this either, the point of the story was him cursing the officer.i think dad thought the caller was the school principle!and was mad that he was against it, but he was blamed for it.
 
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Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
1,790
Re: young tinkerer

The cop had no right to call the Dad or even inquire to find the kids name because no law broken and no citizen complaint was mentioned. The cops also had no authority to go on the school campus with out a valid reason. The cop was very unprofessional by NOT identifying himself FIRST when he called the Dad.
 

Limited-Time

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Mar 30, 2005
Messages
5,820
Re: young tinkerer

Must be a common experiment. Ninth graders here do it and video record it for Science projects every few years. Other years they build Catapults or Ballistas to hurl one pound projectiles at a target 100 feet away.
 

mommicked

Lieutenant Commander
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Re: young tinkerer

in simpler times i think the police might want to do it again for the kids and their own curiousity.I can understand how he may have thought something very bad may have just occured.and a crowd of school children amongst it.he is protecting the public from the public.and he probably got some adreniline charged anger out of the situation when he found out what happened.youall heard about the accused american terrosists on trial here.they lived 20 mins or so from here.
 

fire831

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Aug 26, 2002
Messages
373
Re: young tinkerer

If he was using Foil and the chemical in Indiana I'm pretty sure it is a felony manufacturing a bomb charge. Mentoes and pop, not sure if crime or not.
 

Huron Angler

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Apr 7, 2009
Messages
6,025
Re: young tinkerer

Yup the old "2 liter drano" bombs kept us entertained around age 9-10 if I remember correctly.

Certainly not a good idea to make one looking back on it, but it is good for kids to learn chemistry:p
 

angus63

Captain
Joined
May 20, 2002
Messages
3,726
Re: young tinkerer

I am fairly certain I would be fired if I knowingly allowed my college students to conduct an explosive "experiment" in an uncontrolled environment without safety equipment in place (faceshields, aprons, and a bulkhead enclosure). I'm sure this thread would read different if little Billy had a shard of plastic through his eye.

I am an Engineering Laboratory supervisor and deal with kids attempting ad hoc experiments all of the time. I actually encourage it as long as it is thought out and conducted safely.

I am certain of one thing. I would be livid if I found out the school/teacher I entrust my gradeschool child with is allowing Joe Shmo off the street to blow anything up around my unprotected child.
 
Joined
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Messages
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Re: young tinkerer

If he was using baking soda and vinegar the mixture was harmless..If he was messing with drano now that's a different thing all together,,,,very dangerous As a side note in the 6th grade I was very much interested in chemistry and home made fire works. For a science project I took over a quart of "gun powder" I had removed from some 50 cal machine gun blanks we found in the woods. I poured about 1/3 of a cup on to a plate and as a 'demonstration" I set it off right there in the class and POOF! I smoked up the entire wing of the school. Today if a kid tried this the teacher, the parents and the KID would all be in jail.Hell I didnt know that stuff was so dangerious. It made cool home made rockets..I did get an A on the project though
 

CN Spots

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
1,612
Re: young tinkerer

"...some 50 cal machine gun blanks we found in the woods":eek:

What in the hellz been going on in your woods??:D
 

proaudioguy

Petty Officer 2nd Class
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Aug 12, 2010
Messages
171
Re: young tinkerer

I'm 39 and about 25-28 years ago I was blowing up all sorts of stuff in the back yard. Brake fluid and powdered chlorine are especially interesting. I never thought for one second to blow someONE up or to destroy anyone's property. I just liked the BOOM. My buddy who's a few years younger was doing it as well at about the same age. It's what you do when you are bored. Boys like to shoot stuff and blow stuff up. My youngest takes his nerf guns apart and stretched the springs and removes the air restrictors. He knows I draw the line at at dart modification, but I'm not about to tell him I was making my own blow guns and blow darts at just a year or so older. In school I had some mini blow darts and we found it quite fun to shoot each other when the teacher wasn't looking. We could have put an eye out! Many of my friends had BB gun wars (I some how managed to stay out of those). No eye protection. Welts on their arms, with the occasional lodged BB under the skin. We didn't think too much of it.
 

perchin

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Jun 3, 2010
Messages
275
Re: young tinkerer

I used to think these bombs were trivial and harmless too.....right up untill a lady I work with's husband was setting them off with his kids and this happened to him....the cap hit him at hundreds of mph.... its only harmless untill someone gets hurt. Her husband ended up with plastic surgery to mend the nerves and such. That teacher should of used much better judgement.:mad:

By the way...This thread made me remember her story...so I asked her for copies of the pictures she showed me earlier this year. She said spread the word, luckily it was her husbands arm and not one of their kids faces.:eek:
 

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avenger79

Lieutenant Commander
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May 5, 2008
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Re: young tinkerer

I used to think these bombs were trivial and harmless too.....right up untill a lady I work with's husband was setting them off with his kids and this happened to him....the cap hit him at hundreds of mph.... its only harmless untill someone gets hurt. Her husband ended up with plastic surgery to mend the nerves and such. That teacher should of used much better judgement.:mad:

By the way...This thread made me remember her story...so I asked her for copies of the pictures she showed me earlier this year. She said spread the word, luckily it was her husbands arm and not one of their kids faces.:eek:


typical husband sticking his hands (arms) where they don't belong.
couldn't resist.
 

Bob_VT

Moderator & Unofficial iBoats Historian
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26,109
Re: young tinkerer

Okay..... now people are in my area of expertise and I have a few comments......

First this is all one sided and we here on iboats know there are always two sides to the story...... in this case the LEO and the Dad.

Now as far as home brewed "bottle bombs" ....... they are flat out dangerous REGARDLESS of what is used to explode the bottle. The "average" PSI for a two liter bottle to burst is around 185 PSI.

Will it be loud? ...... YES

Can it harm people? YES it can break your skin, harm hearing, and blindness...... the worst is the plastic shrapnel. Plastic shrapnel will not appear on a X-ray and must be surgically searched for.

Next time the kids are experimenting to make noise keep that in mind.
 
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