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Fun with lasers: Try popping 100 balloons

What would you destroy if you had the Spyder III Krypton handy? Just don't pretend it's a lightsaber.

Tim Hornyak
Crave freelancer Tim Hornyak is the author of "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots." He has been writing about Japanese culture and technology for a decade. E-mail Tim.
Tim Hornyak
Screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET

There are many ways I can think of to have fun with a laser, especially one described as "the world's brightest laser you can legally own." Popping balloons isn't one of them, but YouTube tinkerer WorldScott's stunt is interesting anyway.

In a bid for a record, he lined up 100 red balloons in front of a Spyder III Krypton and fired away.

As seen in the vid below, it took a while for the 750-1,000mW laser, fired through a focusing lens, to pop each balloon, but it eventually did the trick.

The green beam left a trail of red balloon fragments in its wake. Fortunately it wasn't powerful enough to penetrate the far wall.

"If confirmed, this will have been the most balloons in a single-file line consecutively popped from end-on with a single fixed visible laser beam to date," he says.

Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, which prompted an aborted action by Lucasfilm for its lightsaber-like Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser, supplied the Krypton for WorldScott's feat.

In another video, he's also used Wicked's Arctic Spyder III lasers to pop popcorn. Natch, it also has slow-motion replays.

The Krypton is described as being strong enough to reach out beyond the planet's atmosphere. What would you aim it at?