I remember having a toy pistol with those red rolls of pockets of black powder, you had to put the roll under the hammer of the gun and it made a little pop sound and if you were really lucky a tiny puff of smoke.
We ditched the guns once we figured out how to make real noise:
- Unroll a roll of caps
- Zig-zag thread them onto a needle, poking the point of the needle through the middle of each powder pocket, resulting in an square accordion of caps with holes down the middle
- Remove needle
- Compress the accordion of caps into the smallest cube you can, and wrap with cellophane tape to hold together
- Put a drop of airplane glue on top, light and run!
Very loud noise and much hilarity results after the entire roll of caps explodes at once.
Feel free to share with the next generation, so the technology isn't lost forever.