Air Canon Built Out of 10-Meter Tall Cardboard Box in Japan
The “he” button
A program called “Trivia no izumi” (“Hey! Spring of Trivia” in English) used to air on Japanese TV up until a few years ago. The show would present a series of useless, miscellaneous, and unnecessary factsfrom around the world. Unnecessary and absurd… maybe. But they were also fun, anecdotal facts you’d want to tell all your friends about.
Viewers took part in the show by sending in topics, while the program investigated whether they were true or not. Then, two presenters and five members of the jury would decide whether the topics were interesting by evaluating videos of the research process.
Jury members had a huge button on their desks that they could press up to 20 times, depending on how interesting they felt the topic was. Those who received the most points were given a cash prize at the end.
The button the jury used made a sound each time it was pressed that sounded like a "he" (in Japanese, this sound is used to express something resembling “Really?"). This phrase was soon being used on the streets and the show became a social phenomenon.
Bandai has introduced a "he" button targeted at people who’d like to spend some time playing Trivia no izumi with their family and friends at home.
The air canon was one of the topics covered on the program. But, what exactly is an air canon? It’s a canon made out of a cardboard box, invented by Professor Denjiro. The box has a large hole and when you hit the side of the box, air shoots out the hole with enough force to blow out a candle standing 4 meters away.
Can you image an enormous version of this canon? You don’t have to because the program built one of its own as an experiment. It used a box 10 meters tall!
The canon was at first called "Uzu-wa" (ringed whirlwind) but the professor changed its name to "kuuki-hohu" (air canon), inspired by an air pistol featured on the popular animated series Doraemon. The silver pistol was one of the favorite inventions among the series’ fans... that’s why that same pistol became a reality.
Epoch has created toy versions of the pistol and other Doreamon accessories. It launched a line called "Doraemon’s Secret Gadgets" that included different versions of the air pistol to choose from: a transparent one, one in sophisticated colors for adults, and another finger-sized one that works as a TV remote.
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The “he” button
