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Explosives Camp director Paul Worsey instructed one of the high school students to get ready to activate the firing unit, which was connected to the shot cable, which was connected to the detonator, which was connected to the detonating cord – which, finally, was connected to several cans filled with ether. After Worsey’s last warning of “Fire in the hole!” was sounded, a frighteningly loud boom erupted, accompanied by a huge ball of red fire and black smoke.
A rig carrying an 85-ton contraption arrived in Rolla today. The "superload" delivery was made to the mining engineering department, which plans to use the cargo shown here for explosives testing. The explosives will be placed inside this huge chamber. UMR experts will monitor the explosions and conduct studies. The testing chamber wasn't being used at a Utah location and the Air Force provided a grant to cover its transporation to Rolla.
P.S. That rig has a lot more than 18-wheels on it, doesn't it?
... doesn't mean mainstream media will stop talking about UMR's Explosives Camp.
Come September, there are likely to be some raised eyebrows among the nation's schoolteachers when they hear some of the answers to the question, "What did you do this summer?" ... "I blew up some stuff."
John Schwartz of the New York Times says Camp Winnigootchee was never like this.
Elsewhere:
The Associated Press covered UMR's It's a Girl's Thing camp.
And:
The Springfield News-Leader has the story about a UMR student who proposed marriage at Bass Pro.
UMR's Explosives Camp gets some attention today from the biggest blog in the universe, Boing Boing. Thanks also to Make, where the post about NPR's recent report about Explosives Camp caught Boing Boing's attention.
And just in case you haven't seen enough about Explosive Camp, take a look at this:
As the final countdown to Independence Day approaches, media seem to have a bigger interest in things that boom (like, for instance, our Explosives Camp).
News 4 St. Louis, aka KMOV, shares its enthusiasm here.
Yes, we may be a little biased toward public radio. After all, our very own KUMR (soon to be KMST) public radio station hosts TechnoFiles, UMR's award-winning radio research program.
But we have other reasons too. For example, NPR recently sent a reporter to campus to cover Explosives Camp. The result: "At Camp, Teens Blow Stuff Up, As They're Told."
During his week at camp, Niels Zussblatt, a teen from St. Louis, helped blast a rock from deep in a mine, obliterated a watermelon, cut steel beams and set off a "wall of fire."One of his favorites?
"Blowing up the chicken was good," he said. "It flew – forced bits of chicken guts to fly like 40 to 50 feet."
Where else (except for Visions, of course) would you get the scoop on chicken guts? Thanks NPR!
The Associated Press' ASAP news site got wind of our Explosives Camp -- and somehow found a cheesy photo of resident pyromaniac/camp director Paul Worsey -- and decided to write about it. The result -- Blowing up a summer tradition -- is Chicago-based ASAP reporter Caryn Rousseau's summary of the week's events. She chatted with Worsey to get the story, and even quoted fellow Visions blogger Lance Feyh, who plays the role of university spokesman.
Sticks of dynamite. Detonators. Huge balls of fire. Exploding chickens. Best. Camp. Ever. Just click on this link. Trust us.
Last week's incident on campus may have canceled classes for one day, but that didn't keep students from continuing their research that week.
Associate professor John Myers invited me out the UMR's Experimental Mine last Friday to watch as Matt Tinsley, a graduate student in civil engineering from Jonesboro, Ark., put a new, eco-friendly material up against a few pounds of RDX.
A layer of concrete made from wood fibers and fly ash, two materials that otherwise end up in our nation's landfills, is added to a traditional, reinforced concrete block. Then a layer of polyurethane -- think truck-bed-liner material here -- is added to the top of the block. Another concrete block is added to provide an additional source of protection before Matt, with the assistance of UMR explosive engineering students, hangs RDX above the material. The amounts of RDX get bigger, and the distance closer, until he make the polyurethane fail.
Why use wood fibers and fly ash? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, it's reusing waste products. Second, it lessens the amount of debris. The material essentially disintegrates when the blast hits it and the super-stretchy polyurethane layer expands to contain what's left. If regular concrete was used, concrete chunks would be flying everywhere.
Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
This morning, early reports surfaced in Colorado of an explosion at an old uranium mine near Denver. The Associated Press jumped on the story. Details were sketchy, but it still popped up on news sites like USA Today and Forbes. If it had been a mine explosion, we could have turned to UMR's Larry Grayson for reaction. Grayson chairs a federal mine safety comission, which on Dec. 5 released a report containing more than 70 recommendations to improve mine safety.
Fortunately, there was no mine explosion at all, just a broken electrical switch on a transformer that caused loud noises and bright flashes. At least that's the latest word from the Associated Press.
UMR's Jason Baird has helped rig a 10,000-pound bomb of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in the Nevada desert. (He also likes to blow up frozen chickens, presumably with a smaller bomb.) Read about it online in the Chronicle of Higher Education (free to non-subscribers for five days).
Pokémon fans know that Pikachus are usually found in forests, plains, and occasionally near electrical sources (such as power plants). What those fans might not realize is why Pikachus stay far, far away from UMR's Experimental Mine.
The moral of the video? Don't dress up as Pikachu -- or any other Pokémon character -- when you to go UMR's Haunted Mine.
** No animals were harmed during the making of this video. However, a stick of dynamite did demolish a plush Pikachu toy.
Dr. Jason Baird's business, Loki Inc., recently won an award for innovative research. The research has to do with explosive-driven, pulsed power sources for anti-IED technology. The IED stands of course for improvised explosive devices. Through another research/business venture, Baird and others have already started to test blast-resistant barricades for military applications.