Pull the String

• The World's Tiniest Stick of Dynamite
  
  Champagne party poppers often come in packages containing dozens. You may be surprised to learn how these multi-colored, small, cheap and plasticky items work. Everyone has seen them in action: Give the string a tug, jump when it pops, then watch a handful of clumped streamer fly a few feet, flop to the ground, and roll into a corner. Champagne poppers are packed with a tiny amount of gunpowder. The amounts are so minute that champagne poppers aren't even classified as fireworks, which is why they can be sold indiscriminately in grocery stores. More powerful firecrackers, such as M-80s and cherry bombs, are limited by federal law to 50 mg of gunpowder and under. A champagne popper has much less than 1 mg.
  
  

The Trigger

• The delivery mechanism on a party popper is simple. The string taped to the outside runs less than an inch into the handle. Surrounding the string, inside the popper's handle, is a small tube of plastic tape that fits snugly around the final inch of the string. The inside of this tube, like a layer of grease between tube and string, is smeared with a diluted paste of gunpowder. When the string is yanked out of the popper, the tube remains inside the popper handle. This creates a jolt of friction that ignites the champagne popper's gunpowder paste. A tiny explosion rocks the interior of the champagne popper, which produces the effect.
  
  

Moments After the Explosion

• You've yanked the string, igniting the gunpowder and sending a low-power but potent concussive blast into the heart of the champagne popper. Amplified outward by the popper's bell shape, the explosion first encounters a disc of paper that separates the explosive compartment from the main barrel of the device. Pressure pushes this disc outward. Since the disc of paper perfectly fits the interior shape of the barrel, the entire contents of the barrel are forced outward with it. Folded in this segment are the multi-colored streamers and confetti that may be included in this particular make and model. The festive material, forced up the barrel by the explosion, finally encounters the outer wrapper: an identical disc of paper. This gives way, skyrocketing outward with the streamers right behind.