I remember formulating nitrogen tri-iodide crystals in Jr. High School and scattering them in the hallway before class change. Good times! Countless hours were also wasted collecting dead batteries and salvaging them for the zinc. We would dissolve the zinc in Muriatic acid to produce hydrogen gas which we would capture in balloons. We would tie off the balloon with a string which we would then set on fire and release. The resulting fireballs were glorious. To this day, I don’t know why we hated the planet so much. If people get their panties in a twist over a lighter, I’m sure if a kid did anything that was remotely scientific, they would live out their days in a Homeland Security compound. Remember Kids! Science is Magic Made Dangerous!
The flash was seen in all eight or ten classrooms and the offices,and there was a satisfying "pow".No glass breakage,no injuries,..but it did surprise EVERYONE involved.Oh, and no undue concern or stupid punishments,either.
I never did that.
Milk Bottle tops and Caustic Soda.
We would dissolve the zinc in Muriatic acid to produce hydrogen gas which we would capture in balloons.
Too bad you didn't learn the glories of taking industrial plastic trash bags, taping them together to make a much larger balloon and then filling them with mixtures of natural gas and hydrogen.
My personal favorite recipe for hydrogen was throwing a bunch of galvanized nails into a bucket of swimming pool acid and capturing the discharge in one of the trashbags. Instead of string, we used canon fuse. And for extra fun, we hung sheets of aluminum foil from the balloon to screw with the airport radar. One particularly good explosion/fire-ball actually got the local LEOs out.