Summer camp is a familiar experience to any kid whose parents had a disposable income and a desire to have the house to themselves for a few weeks. And sure, canoeing and hiking can be fun for a while, but what if there were summer camps where you could learn how to be a ninja? Or fly a freaking jet through the mountains of Africa?
As it turns out, there are camps out there heroically offering all of those things, and for some of them, you don't even need to be a kid to enroll. The disposable income is pretty much still a requirement, though.
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That's right, teenagers -- the Missouri University of Science and Technology offers a summer camp for people your age looking to blow some shit up, because apparently one of our eighth-birthday wishes finally came true. If you're a junior or senior in high school with an interest in pursuing a career in explosives (a phrase here meaning "you are a teenager who enjoys things that are awesome"), you can enroll in the five-day course and learn how to handle materials such as fireworks, dynamite, and good ol' C-freaking-4.
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"Maybe you're irresponsible for not trusting children with this."
Campers will be given instruction in blast mining, underground demolition, and pyrotechnics. In addition to surface-blasting quarries and traveling deep into a lead mine to set off TNT clusters, accepted students will get to strap explosive charges to watermelons, Care Bears, and eerily trussed-up Barbie dolls, because even experienced professionals haven't completely moved beyond the "tying firecrackers to G.I. Joes" phase that set them on their career paths in the first place.
Missouri S&T
And to be fair, Shrek had this one coming.
As we mentioned earlier, a portion of the camp is focused on pyrotechnics, with the goal of making theatrical explosions for movies and television. To that end, the campers get to create controlled "walls of fire," which are exactly what they sound like:
Missouri S&T
Provided you heard "the napalm scene from Apocalypse Now" when you read that.
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