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Interesting Engineering
Watch: World’s largest, 1250 pound steel-rocket dropped on a car from a crane
By Ameya Paleja,
8 hours ago
Anyone in their sane mind would not want to see what would happen if a giant dart were sent through a regular car. But when one subscribes to a YouTube channel called ‘How Ridiculous,’ nothing is off the table, not even ordering the world’s largest steel dart, just to make a video.
In this day and age of 10-second reels, engaging an audience for a video over 20 minutes long can be quite hard, and gaining a large fan base with it is even more difficult. So, if I were to tell you that ‘How Ridiculous’ has over 22 million followers on the social video site, the next question would be how they are doing this.
The answer is also in the channel’s name: doing completely ridiculous things that people would surely not do at home—throwing 100 tires down a mountain and calling it extreme bowling or using giant balloons to stop an arrow released from a bow.
Another glance at their list of videos shows throwing an anvil on a car from the top of the dam wall 541 feet (165 m) high or dropping a car on a spike trap from 150 feet (45 m), and soon one realizes that destroying the car is a common theme. This time, the prop has changed.
The world’s largest dart
As shown in the video, the team ordered the world’s largest dart after watching another ‘mega’ dart video and agreeing that it wasn’t ‘mega’ enough. The fabricator looked closely at a dart and replicated the minute details best when scaling the dart up.
The result is a dart that weighs 1,250 pounds and is ready to impale a Chrysler PT cruiser. But, of course, the team did not go straight to it. They needed a crane to do the heavy lifting of the dart. They decided to also try it on a series of other materials, like 10,000 sheets of copy paper, a tire, an all-terrain vehicle , and even a toy dinosaur, before coming to their mega target, stacked on drums.
Here’s a look.
How did they fare?
To add a bit of a challenge to their task, the team at How Ridiculous also put a dart board under the car and wondered if they would hit it.
When the moment came, the world’s largest dart went through the car and onto the dartboard , in what can only be called a bulls-eye , considering it had been dropped from nearly 200 feet (60 m) in the air.
As is the case with YouTube, there is always treasure in the comments if you are willing to find it.
A user exclaimed that the team at How Ridiculous had been working for 15 years to prepare for this moment, when they had to launch a mammoth dart and hit a 15-inch (40-cm) dartboard.
Another user had advice for the YouTubers who were having some difficulty with the dart being off-centered. The user suggested that the fabricator color the fins of the dart so that the team can determine which way the dart is lopsided. By adding more weight on the opposite side, the team can correct the dart’s deviation.
That is sane advice. An engineer is easy to spot, even in YouTube comments.
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