Awesome Explosions

The Beyond the Press channel covered an old beater with 70 blasting caps, then detonated them remotely. With the help of their Matrix-style ring Chronos 1.4 cameras, they recorded the sparkly light show in 360º slow-motion. For safety purposes, they couldn’t load the car with explosives, but it’s still fun to watch.

(Loud) Making a metal sphere usually involves stamping or spinning sheet metal. But this video shows a process where they start out with a shape made out of polygons, then turn it into a sphere by bending the metal with an explosion at its center. We’re not sure of all of the science, but we found a paper on the subject.

With just the right amount of compressed air, it’s possible to spin an apple in the air. But there’s only so many RPMs a fruit can take, and eventually, the apple gives up. Gav from The Slow Mo Guys put this physics experiment to the test in front of a high-speed camera so we can see exactly what happens when it disintegrates.

Because we can never get enough explosions around here, sit back and enjoy the fiery destruction as this tricked-out diesel truck experiences a catastrophic failure on the dynamometer, the likes of which we’ve not seen before. Thankfully nobody was injured in the big kaboom.

The guys at the Hydraulic Press Channel have been causing paper to explode under pressure for quite some time now. In this clip they attempt to measure just how much force a stack of paper can endure before failing spectacularly.

Destin from Smarter Every Day and Shane from Stuff Made Here have had a little friendly competition going on to see who could hit a baseball furthest through engineering. Now, the two have teamed up to examine exactly how Shane’s explosively-charged home run bat works its magic, in glorious slow-motion.

People do some strange things when they run out of stuff to do. Take, for example, this annual festival which takes place in San Juan de la Vega, Mexico. The sole objective is for participants to hit things with a sledgehammer packed with explosives so it blows up. Todd Hata takes us inside this wild and loud celebration.

Back in the day, there was this great video game called Battle Chess, in which chess pieces fought to the death on the board. This clip from CGI animator lotsalote envisions what a next-gen version of that game might look like, as individual chess pieces explode violently on impact with their opponents.

When they’re not smushing stuff with their hydraulic press, the guys from Beyond the Press are destroying things in other ways. In preparation for Halloween 2020, they decided to see if dynamite or gunpowder works better to blow up pumpkins. Naturally, they captured the delicious carnage in super-slow-motion.

Inspired by the Junk Jet in Fallout 4, The Hacksmith went ahead and built a real-world replica of the unique and destructive weapon. Simply load up its steel barrel with anything you find lying around, and its airbag-powered launcher turns random junk into deadly projectiles.

In order to improve his hit distance, engineer Shane Wighton Stuff Made Here created a baseball bat with the ultimate sweet spot. If hit just right, explosive charges fire, pushing a piston forward, and launching the baseball into home run territory. Along the way, he shows off his fancy new Tormach 24r mill.

Opening up an ATM with a hand grenade seems like a bad idea, but we suppose if you own the machine, you can do whatever you want with it, right? Edwin Sarkissian decided to see what would happen when he tossed an M67 frag grenade into one of those convenience store ATMs, and the carnage is everything you could hoped for.

FPS games love to toss in an assortment of explosive barrels and other stuff to blow up among their scenery, letting players quickly dispatch large groups of enemies with a single shot. As part of their extensive series on weaponry, Ahoy looks back at the history of these common video game props, and why we still love them.

Independence Day is nearly upon us, so it’s time to amp up the fireworks beyond the nightly booms of cherry bombs and M80s to something a little more spectacular. Maker Peter Sripol decided to see if he and his pal Sam could build oversize versions of two kinds of spinning fireworks displays, each powered by model rocket motors.

The guys from The King of Random teamed up with Todd Robins from Kuma Films to capture slow-motion video footage of what happens when you burst a bunch of balloons that have been inflated inside of each other. It took an 11,000 fps camera to really show off the split-second explosions.

The guys from the Hydraulic Press Channel and Beyond the Press Channel keep their promise for bigger and more impressive videos by attempting to launch a crappy car into the sky using more than 150 pounds of dynamite. At the same time, they kicked off the first mission of the unofficial Finnish space program.

As part of the festivities at the 2020 Steamboat Springs Winter Carnival in Colorado, the pyrotechnics experts from Steamboat Fireworks bested the previous world record for largest firework shell by launching a 62-inch explosive package sky-high, illuminating the night skies for miles around.

Kuma Films sends off Christmas with a bang, shattering ornaments, gingerbread men, gift boxes, and other holiday items with a tiny desktop cannon, and capturing the carnage in glorious slow-motion.

YouTuber The S loves to make stuff from cardboard, and often incorporates matchsticks into his designs. In this clip, he compiles four builds which incorporate jet engines powered by numerous lit matches. While they don’t travel that fast, the fiery launches are quite the spectacle.

Who doesn’t love watching things blow up in slow motion? The guys at Love High Speed captured a variety of explody things in front of the lens of a Phantom v2640 Onyx camera, and the images they recorded are quite spectacular. That not enough for you? Here’s a bonus clip.

You know those fireworks that look like a tiny tank? Well builder Peter Sripol decided to celebrate the 4th of July (and 1 million subscribers) by building himself a gigantic replica of the thing. Naturally, his version makes a lot more fire. Plus, it was reusable – at least for a while.

Gav and Dan wrap up their Planet Slow-mo series with an explosive finish. They set off a 120+ foot-wide line of fireworks, each loaded up with colorful paints. The first run didn’t detonate quite right, but fortunately, they got a second go at it.

Colin Furze celebrated hitting 7 million subscribers by putting a thousand rocket fireworks each on two trucks face to face, then let ’em fly. It lasted only a few seconds, but it was a glorious few seconds. Skip to 5:00 for the spectacle.