fandomhigh | How to Blow Things Up: Week 5, Period 1

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blow things up

How to Blow Things Up: Week 5, Period 1

The class met back in the Danger Shop today per the ~~handwavy~~ note Aly sent out to her class.

She was waiting impatiently as they filed in. When everyone was present, she punched up a sequence so that two tall buildings stood at the far end of the Danger Shop. Another quickly keyed in sequence and a countdown could be heard through a speaker. 6-5-4-3-2-1... And the buildings imploded, one after another in a perfectly timed maneuver.

Once the dust had settled, Aly turned back to the class. "So that was a building implosion. It's a very cool use of tnt especially in highly populated areas where you want to bring a structure down in its original footprint to keep other buildings - or people - from getting hurt." She grinned. "And that's about all I know about the subject, but I've a bunch of papers up here about it if anyone's interested in exploring it further."

She picked up a plasticy white block off the desk and held it up for the students to see. "This? Is C-4. It's a high explosive designed for military use. It's probably an explosive you're familiar with if you watch modern movies or TV. It's very, very powerful and also nicely stable."

She set the block of C-4 on the floor and, striking a match, set it on fire. The block simply started burning slowly.

"It needs a detonator or blasting cap to actually explode. Fire's not enough. Even if you shot a brick of C-4 with a shotgun round, it wouldn't be enough of a shock to set it off. You can also mold it into whatever shape you need to direct the explosion or press the explosive into cracks in a wall or voids in a bridge or machinery."

Aly grinned and gestured to the rows of detonator caps and bricks of C4. "Luckily we have both C-4 and detonators and a ~~moddable~~ environment that you can experiment with directing charges and the amount needed to blow up trucks, bridges, walls, etc. Let me say that less is not considered more when you try to blow something up. A halfway collapsed building does no one any good."

"Second we have some dynamite to try out. Dynamite is a lot less stable than C-4 and in recent years, it's been phased out especially on the battlefield as more accurate and less dangerous explosives have been created. One note, dynamite is not the same as TNT nor is it made up of TNT. Two totally different explosives - dynamite's sawdust or some other absorbent material soaked in nitroglycerin while TNT is a specific chemical compound - Trinitrotoluene." She grinned. "Just to clear that up if people have been told otherwise by Bugs Bunny cartoons."

"So for today, I want you to discuss tactics for uses both these types of explosives - why C-4's become so popular recently on this world and what characteristics you would look for in a high grade explosive. Then try both out, try to bring down a bridge or a building using both explosives and see which you like best."

"Finally, next week we're going to look at explosives that aren't quite so...chemical. Magical explosives or those from another world - if you any of you guys are familiar with a different way of blowing things up and have been not using it at my request during this class, now's your chance. Find me after class and let me know, okay? I'd love to have you demonstrate.

[OOC: Mmm, tl'dr. Let me or Aly know if you have other explodey goodies for next week and ~~please wait for th~~e OCD is up!]

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As you do

Wyatt Halliwell

Annette Hargrove

Animal

Neil Perry

Bridge Carson

Luke Skywalker

River Tam

Bart Allen

William Kessler

Summer Roberts

Evie Carnahan

Setsuna Sakurazaki

Ami Mizuno

Sokka

Inara Serra

Johnny Blaze

Z Delgado

...if you really are insane enough to talk while buildings are blowing up.

Wyatt wasn't talking. He was watching and grinning. High explosives, baby! Now you're playing with power!

Annette wasn't talking. She was very much impressed by watching.

Luke was taking careful notes. He had a feeling that the Empire wasn't just going to move on off of Coruscant because the New Republic asked politely.

River was impressed. She watched quietly.

This was somewhat like a refresher course for Billy, so he took notes to fill in the blanks in his knowledge.

Not insane enough to talk, but to rapidly take lots of notes in neatly scripted Japanese. Such was Setsuna.

Talking?!?! Oh, HELL no. Sokka was just standing there with his eyes wide and a stupid grin on his face.

Inara watched, and tried to hide her horror. This...this wasn't the way she wanted to be a revolutionary.

Seriously. Why's C-4 so big? How can you use it? What would dynamite be good for that C-4 might not be? What about these two explosives compared to others we've looked at.

Luke went through a rather ridiculously detailed breakdown of the three different elements, when he'd use them, and why he preferred them to the more unstable compounds they'd been working with earlier in the summer.

River examined the information at hand and decided that she liked a more stable explosive. Predictability made precision possible.

"I like C4 because of the ease of making shaped charges. Also these days it sounds more impressive."

"Is C-4 more expensive, maybe? Harder to get ahold of? Harder to use?" Sokka asked. "Because, seriously, if not then I don't see any reason to use anything else."

Inara explained why she believed a more stable explosive would be preferable, focusing especially on its relative safety and predictibility.

Try it out, blow things up. There are many moddable structures to try out so have fun with it.

...don't forget the detonator.

Wyatt somehow produced some sort of barbie doll, dressed all in pink, of course. He strapped it to the C4 and gleefully set it off.

Animal molded his C4 into a certain shape (http://www.keymedia.co.uk/resources/images/creative.jpg).

And then blew it up.

"HAH! HAH! HAH! QUACK! QUACK! BOOM!"

Luke had been right. Taking down a bridge had helped a lot with residual father issues.

He didn't smile, though.

River picked a nice house and made it blow up, a wide smile on her face.

There was absolutely no signifigance to the fact that Billy placed some C4 on the bottom of a plate in an office, with a pressure sensitive trigger. It obliterated the plate, and punched a hole through the desk, but nothing else in the room was harmed.

Setsuna decided to blow up a bar.

Mmmmm, memories....

Annette molded her C4 into a great big ball and carved a sad face on it with a pencil. Then she spray painted the whole thing pink.

Then she blew it up.

"Wow!"

Sokka rolled the C-4 out thin and carefully used it spell out "SOKKA" on a cliff face. And then stuck a larger lump several yards down, tied to the same detonator.

One massive explosion and a dust cloud later, the cliff had Sokka's name gouged into it, followed by a large pile of rocks.

Sokka, rocks. Get it? Yes, loser boy was chuckling over that.

Z just so happened to have brought a small robot with her to class, which she used the C4 to make go boom. Whee!

Try it out, blow things up, round 2

This time River found something vaguely spaceship-like to blow up. Of course it wasn't what it would look like in space but it was still impressive.

Sokka stuck several sticks of dynamite into a birthday cake on a table inside a gazebo, and ran to a safe distance. Then he started singing "Happy Birthday" until there was no more gazebo.

For any reason, but especially if you want to do a demonstration next class.

The ants go marching two by two
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching two by two
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The ants go marching two by two
The littlest stops to tie his shoe,
And they all go marching down in the ground
To get out of the rain...

This class reminded me if this website (http://www.implosionworld.com/). It always cheers me up if I'm tired of buildings.

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How to Blow Things Up: Week 5, Period 1

[Explodey 8/7] - Sign In

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[Explodey 8/7] - Chit Chat and Note Taking

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[Explodey 8/7] - Talk Tactics

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[Explodey 8/7] - C4

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[Explodey 8/7] - Dynamite

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[Explodey 8/7] - Talk to Aly

[Explodey 8/7] - OOC

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