N385 - Seeing Sideways - Eggsplosion

The first assignment for this class, while simple in concept, was quite difficult for me. It was just this: "Do something with an egg."

Yup... My thought process went something like this:

i could throw it at something. no. that's dumb. anyone can throw an egg. well maybe i could throw it out of my car. that would be cool. no shit. how am i supposed to get pictures or video of that. maybe i could make a catapult or... a really big rubber band and see how far i can fling it. no that's not cool enough.

After a few days I still hadn't come up with anything, so I decided to see what my friends had to say. I got "throw it at someone," "freeze it," and "drop it from the top of a building." I still didn't want to throw it at anything, and dropping it would be cool, but not very creative (and possibly illegal depending on what building I chose). Freezing it was a cool idea, but I wanted to see something exciting, and freezing is slow and dull and... yeah.

Finally, something clicked. Instead of freezing it, I was going to light that son of a bitch on fire. I went to my parents house (I live in an apartment and a flaming egg wasn't going to be acceptable on my second story balcony) and went straight to work. The process was straightforward: I doused the egg with lighter fluid and held a lighter to it.

The results were far from impressive. Nothing (not even the lighter fluid) lit on fire. The egg just crackled a bit and the shell got a bit... dry looking... where I had held the lighter for so long. Defeated, I went back and side and started getting ready to leave.

As I was getting some things out of one of my bedroom drawers, there it was: my collection of bottle rockets and firecrackers. A light bulb (or perhaps more accurately, an atom bomb) went off in my head. If I couldn't light it on fire I was going to make it explode.

Helmet's Helpful Hints: Always stock up on firecrackers, bottle rockets and roman candles around 4th of July. You'll never know when you are going to need them.

I gathered up a handful of each and some tape and got right to work. I taped six M-150 firecrackers around it and began trying to line up the wicks so they would go off simultaneously. When I was done I went outside and lit it. I failed... I was only able to get one of the firecrackers lit before I had to back away, and it was... mediocre at best.

Damn it all! I would not be defeated by an egg! I went back in the house and retrieved an egg from the refrigerator. This was it... the one egg. I was going out with a bang. (Pun not intended, but somewhat unavoidable. I apologize.) Thought process:

how many bottle rockets would i need to make it fly. that would be epic. i can only line up about six of the wicks... shit. this isn't going to take off. maybe i can light more than one group of six. i'm not going to lose my hand because of an egg. ok. think. well if it won't fly it needs to blow up good. real good. ok. got it. add firecrackers as well.

This thing was beautiful. Was it going to fly? Not a snowball's chance in Hell, but it was going to do something, and I was excited about that. I carried it outside like a new father carrying his hemophiliac infant. I set it carefully down on a stump and did my best to get all of the wicks lit.

Success! I backed up as quickly as possible, trying not to slip in the snow or fall into the creek that was right next to me. (For these reasons, the video I shot is not the best, but if I ever attempt this again, I'll do better. Pinky Promise!)

The bottle rockets shot off with a fffffffooooooooosh!, but the egg didn't budge. Then they exploded almost immediately before the firecrackers went off. cccccuuuurack-ack-crack-ck-ack! I could not have been more happy. Egg was everywhere, and the shell was awesome. All the egg was gone, but it was almost all still in one piece.

Sigh... A job well done, if I do say so myself. As I alluded to earlier, there are videos, but they aren't that great... I'll upload them later for your viewing pleasure.