Personally I wish they used multiple cameras because I found the running up and down stairs bits to be a little awkward to follow. However this is only a minor criticism as it was a really cool video and far better than anything I could have done.
When I was a kid I would make something similar out of a (partially) unfolded paperclip. Seeing it on youtube makes it seem much less amusing than I remember.
I used to do those as well, but without making the ends parallel, just hooking the tips together. To set it off I'd drop it parallel to the plane of the clip instead of on the edge. The goal was to hit the ceiling. One time I actually got it to stick into the fibrous ceiling tile. The challenge of maximizing the force was what made it fun.
As a kid in the 80s, I used to make these kind of structures out of old lollipop sticks you'd find around the streets in summer time. Would make into 7-8 sticks into a kind of star of david shape, which was excellent for a) throwing like a frisbee b) exploding on impact.
Simple times! No idea who taught me how, or what they were referred to, but boy did I have fun
When the kids were into crafts, I made one of these for fun - never saw it before, just tried to weave them together with the minimum of sticks. There is a 4-stick 'airplane' possible; the article shows the easier 5-stick version.
So I think its useless to try to find the 'inventor'; endless people have independently discovered this novelty.
I bought some of those about a year ago... not sure if the nostalgia's worn off, but the quality of the bounce just doesn't seem as good as it was when I was a kid.
Oh my god, I used to make these things as a kid! We had a popsicle-stick building contest and while we were waiting for the glue to dry we'd make these and throw them at the other kids' bridges. I had no idea they were actually a "thing". Thank you for posting, brings back memories.
This is awesome. I know what I'm doing with my four year old this weekend. I have been building the triangle bombs with him with paint stir sticks and he loves them.
Because somebody posted it and others found it curious and interesting - among them me. I didn't upvote it, but I found the potential explosion velocity surprising. It may not be of interest to you, but hey, I usually ignore like 50% of the HN homepage right away since I don't care about them. However, I don't go run around and post "why is this on HN?" in those threads.
The stickbomb is an interesting device, because it is entirely mathematical, and is thus a great hack because normally, you're using a tongue depressor to .. do depressor'y things ...
