NERF guns are a toy that appeals to adults and youngsters alike — if you’ve never had the chance to pelt your friends with safe and kid friendly foam darts in a surprise ambush, you haven’t lived. But just as with real-world weapons of the type superpowers put in shows of military strength, there’s an arms race in the world of NERF. Mere darts aren’t enough, and there’s a range of missiles for the bellicose youngster intent on skirting the brink of global foam dart annihilation. These come with a catch though in the shape of a lackluster launcher, and this has prompted [Joel Creates] to create a self-firing NERF missile with a secondary rocket motor.

A supercapacitor stores enough energy to light a small scrap of guncotton explosive when sent through a heater coil, and this should be enough to launch the missile. Perhaps this whole video should sit in “Don’t try this at home kids” territory, but try he does, with multiple dead ends along the way. The final try is a secondary rocket motor inside the missile that’s triggered by a micro switch upon leaving the standard NERF launcher. It’s not a resounding success, but we’re sure you’ll agree it’s an entertaining video to get there.

We’ve featured quite a few NERF hacks over the years, including this large auto-aimer.