» DIY Techno-hacks

Muck-up day... plus fireworks
Muck-up day was a day at our school a couple of weeks before the end of the summer term where the year 11 students would have their last ever day at the school before having their leave before their exams and summer break.

Students would bring eggs and flour to school and generally wreak havoc for the day and go home under the premiss that you can't get expelled on your last day of school. (One of the more ingenious 'pranks' was a load of kids studying bricklaying bricked up all the entrances to the school the night before)
I alway frowned upon these folk as I deemed it vandalistic and thought the day should have more of a celebratory air to it.
I wanted to send our year off with a bang and decided that a fireworks display was in order. Getting caught though would of course lead to me not being aloud to sit my exams. I needed some sort of way of automating it.

So off the wall came the kitchen clock. The hour hand was wrapped in tinfoil. A butterfly pin was put 3/4 of the way between 1 and 2 o'clock (to insure it went off at the hight of lunch time). The butterfly pin was hooked up to a battery and an electric match and the match was put in a pile of toilet paper I had soaked in weed killer and dried to make a sort of 'flash paper'. This was put in the middle of an empty tin of roses surrounded with fireworks with all the fuses facing inwards, all held together with duct tape.
As it was all dependent on this kitchen clock it means i had to set it after 1:45am, so on the morning of muck up day I scrambled on to the roof of the school and set up, hiding it behind bricks.
Come 1:45ish I was nervously waiting to see if it would work, sitting in the playing field on a bank when the headteacher comes over to me to wish me good luck with my exams. As soon as he shakes my hand the roof of the school explodes into a wirlwind of screaming fireworks and thunder flashes.

Him talking to me when it went off was my best alibi until unbeknown to me somebody dobbed me in a few weeks later.

This is what was presented to me a few weeks later at prize giving in front of all the parents and governors. Click to see pic (60k)

Afterwards he told me that that was the most innovative 'prank' he had ever seen and said if i were to ever do it again just don't put it next to the gas main for the school... oops
(Thu 20th Aug 2009, 17:57, More)

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Amiga
I completed Cannon Fodder with Jools and Jops in-tacked aged 8 on an amiga 1200 =D
(Tue 11th Mar 2008, 13:58, More)