Want to see what happens when someone designs and constructs an intricate structure, where all the individual components are constrained to stay in place, and suddenly, the tension holding the entire system together is broken at just one place?
Well, if you read through that first paragraph, of course you do! Here you go (HT: Core77):
What you've just seen is called a "Stick Bomb". Core77's hipstomp describes it:
A Stick Bomb is simply a grouping of sticks—in this case, tongue depressors or ice cream sticks—woven together in a pattern that creates tension, as seen in the photo above, so that one stick holds another in place. Once that tension is released, you can achieve some surprising things.
Indeed. We wonder if the lessons of the Stick Bomb might be applied to other avenues of human endeavor.