5 ms·
The Oral History of the Super Soaker
- bigtrakzapzap 7y agoI remember having a SS 50, 100 & 200 back in the day. And filling up water balloons the old-fashioned way. Now kids have the automatic water balloon fillers and smart phones. Do most kids even still have water fights in the summer or do people get too offended or are too busy helicopter parenting to let kids have any fun?
- grawprog 7y agoI dunno, I would've been pretty stoked on an automatic waterballoon filler as a kid. Finding a tap that fit the balloon and didn't rip it was always a challenge.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y agoYeah; that was, like, the goal we dreamed about. Like how I wanted a book I could read in the dark, and was ecstatic when tablets and ereaders took off. Or how we hated sharing the phone line and DSL changed our world. It's actually really neat to see our childhood dreams being realized.
- majos 7y agoI think it's healthy for the HN community to have a spectrum of users ranging from "bitter and cynical because we don't have flying cars" to "thrilled at how fast water balloon fill times have fallen".
- beamatronic 7y agoHere in California parents can apply for a one day permit for launching water balloons, a one hour mandatory training course is required; and the water must be filtered by an approved system.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tonyarkles 7y agoI... Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...
- zrail 7y ago"kids these days amirite" My, what has this site become.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoWas it better in the old days?
- taneq 7y agoBecause of the kids?
- jandrese 7y agoYou are offended because it doesn't take an hour to blow up enough water balloons for a 5 minute fight anymore?
- esaym 7y agoI can't remember if I had the 50 or 100, but there's still a bare spot above a ceiling fan at my grandmother's house where the popcorn texture was blasted away because we thought it could be cool to shoot the ceiling with the SS while the fan was on high speed.
- unwind 7y agoTIL about popcorn ceilings, and also that before 1977 they typically contained asbestos. I hope you're okay.
- grogenaut 7y agoTIL some people think asbestos is immediately fatal.
- brian-armstrong 7y agoTo be fair, that does sound pretty cool
- grogenaut 7y agoThere were several contraptions to do balloons very fast when I was a kid in the 90s.
- h2odragon 7y ago1 gallon garden sprayers are cheap and durable; custom nozzles are where the fun lies.
- ZanyProgrammer 7y agoI can’t believe I’m mentioning The FPlus here, but here’s a very NSFW and satirical podcast about...well, people with a squirt gun fetish. https://thefpl.us/episode/305 https://thefpl.us/episode/305
- inflatableDodo 7y agoCurrently he seems to be focussing on an interesting cross between a hydrogen fuel cell and a heat engine. http://www.johnsonems.com http://www.johnsonems.com
- mirimir 7y agoAnyone remember using latex surgical tubing? You took maybe six feet of 0.75" OD tubing, knotted one end, and filled with water. You could coil it around your waist, or over your shoulder. You could also use latex surgical tubing to make three-person water-balloon slingshots.
- close04 7y agoAs kids we were using 2l bottles of soda with a hole in the cap. Took a bit of practice to wield a full 2l bottle and squeeze it with enough power to reach anyone though. Even if Super Soaker was on the shelves it would have been a pipe dream.
- mirimir 7y agoHuh. I guess that you could do the dry ice and water thing, but avoiding explosions could be dicey.
- chiph 7y agoSome friends & I had taken one of those water balloon launchers on a company trip. After a dinner with lots of alcohol, we were launching them out of the darkened hotel room window, getting some amazing range. People walking outside couldn't tell where they were coming from when they landed right next to them with a loud splat. In retrospect, we were so lucky we didn't hit anyone - they would have been seriously hurt. I don't think they sell the product anymore - it's probably in the same safety category as Lawn Darts.
- f_allwein 7y agorelated : check out Spyra, the ultimate water gun: https://www.spyraone.com/about-spyra-one/ https://www.spyraone.com/about-spyra-one/ (Startup at the university where I work)
- jd73_8dhck 7y agoThe design looks very cool. But who is the target customer? I did not see any pictures of children on the site.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- k__ 7y agoI got a fake SS in Spain when I was 7 or something. It was like a 50, but with two tanks. I was the coolest kid when I brought this MF back to Germany, haha