Super Soakers changed the game when they started popping up at pool parties and backyard BBQs in the early ’90s, their sharp, pressurized bursts of water all but rendering the traditional squirt pistol obsolete. For years, the industry has beefed up and innovated Lonnie Johnson’s initial creation, but none can touch the beast that Mark Rober just debuted on his YouTube account.
Rober, a one-time NASA engineer who quit to become the World’s Greatest Dad, spent six months building a Super Soaker that measures 7 feet long and is capable of firing water at 243 miles per hour. In the video, you can see him using the thing to shatter panes of glass, slice a watermelon in half, and put the fear of god into any passing animals. It now holds a Guinness World Record, which Mr. Guinness likely bestowed while wearing three layers of body armor.
In addition to demonstrating the Super Soaker’s construction, Rober also checks in with Johnson to hear about the toy’s origins before challenging his family and friends to a water gun fight that somehow doesn’t end in a splattering of flayed torsos.
If your intentions are pure, you can cobble together your own using this list of parts and CAD files provided by Rober. Also, his colleague even posted a more detailed making-of video on YouTube.
But if you ask us, no mere human should ever wield such power.