Many lament YouTube’s influence on children’s minds, as uncensored crappy entertainment is produced outside the oversight of regulatory agencies and is inevitably rife with product placement and pessimistic ideas about child safety. but Thensomeone spent three months figuring out how to fire Mario KartGreen shells on the roof of their car.
This is thanks to Alex Corea, known on YouTube as No bitratea kind of baby Mark Robb, with an expletive. The channel’s mission is to create “some of the stupidest, most dangerous content online allowed on YouTube.” But considering what a Robbian effort it is to include a wealth of educationally relevant information about physics, mathematics, and experiments, that’s a real understatement. But yeah, it’s also a lot stupider in the best light.
Pretending that no other similar channel dared to try, Corea set out to be the first to recreate the real version Mario Kart‘s green shell, try to base it on the in-game model as much as possible, and then throw away the parts that make it impossible.
There was a lot of speculation going on, as this was of course an attempt to translate the cartoon concept into the real world, but there was also agreement to try and make the shells the right size, and actually work out how fast they would need to travel to cause the kind of damage they saw in the game . (This also means giving up how fast they move in the game, because it turns out Nintendo does no Respect physics.
Then, once rockets are involved, there’s the added challenge of launching projectiles from the roof of a moving car and being able to have them hit another vehicle, all without breaking the law. Ironically, it turns out that using remote-controlled cars to keep humans safe meeting make this illegal, But just sitting in the car by myself is fine.
Spent years watching Mythbusters, it’s hard to deal with the absolute lack of safety standards that come with using FTC-regulated cables as Corea and cronies launch questionably legal rockets in the desert with no more protection than a pair of sunglasses. (Thank God for the tank-like windshield in the end, though.)
However, the results are brilliant. It would be slightly different if… Mario Kartown bombardment.
Bullshit like this always gives me hope. These smart people do a stupid thing in a smart way, something that can turn many young minds towards STEM subjects. It’s also very well edited and, if a little crazy, a lot of fun.
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