Cowards. They’re all cowards. YouTuber Alex Corea, AKA No Bitrate, claims fellow influential content creators haven’t done enough to recreate video game items IRL, especially the weapons. So, he’s taken it upon himself to create the one thing that hasn’t transitioned from the virtual and into reality: the Mario Kart shell.
And not just craft the shell. That’s the easy part thanks to 3D printers. The fun, frustrating, and fearlessly stupid part is weaponizing the shell like in the game. For those who’ve never been challenged by your neighbors (and their kids) to a Mario Kart session, in the game, a shell will not only send your opponent’s vehicle spinning but also dislodge your opponent from said vehicle.
There’s a lot of trial and error documented in the nearly 35-minute video. Mostly a bunch of errors, though, which happens when you have a budget for rockets and cheap cars but not actual rocket scientists to help build the thing. This isn’t October Sky, folks. It’s not even October Sky on a backyard budget. It is, however, a mildly entertaining watch once you skip through the first 20 minutes of hype.
For example, initial calculations based on speed data from the video game showed the shells traveling about 69 mph. Although this is an amusing number for preteens to say, it’s just not fast enough for Reddit. So, back to the chalkboard they go, and using internet math taught by gamer fanboys, the travel speed is recalculated to be between 236 and 275 mph. Cowagbunga, man.
After obtaining sufficiently-powered Grade H rockets through possibly questionable means, No Bitrate installs a rocket motor into a shell for a test flight. Of course, it fails miserably as the shell travels not in a straight line but goes topsy turvy, bounces on the ground, and off camera into the bushes. Ah, physics.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, however, considering a turtle shell isn’t shaped for above-ground speed but rather for underground burrowing. As for rockets, even non-rocket scientists will tell you that those require aerodynamics and stability. And so the No Bitrate team adds a missile-like tube with fins to the shell.
Although this no longer looks like the standalone turtle shell used in Mario Kart, at this point in the video (about halfway), safety actually becomes a concern. Looks aside, the new shell rocket works, flying through the air in a relatively straight line and missing its Mario mannequin target by a foot. But that’s from a stationary vehicle. The idea is to be moving while rocket launching.
And we’re gonna need a bigger target.
Enter a second-generation Nissan Quest bought off of Facebook Marketplace for a thousand bucks. It’s got niceties like a built-in VHS player, more dangling wires than it came from the factory with, and a motor that wants to be a tractor when it grows. Perfect!
But first, the “kart,” a 1996 Suzuki X-90, needs to be armored—literally. The No Bitrate team installs a metal plate with two peepholes onto the windshield. The launchpad itself is also placed on a steel plate but attached to the Suzuki’s glass T-top via suction cups. This is definitely not an OSHA-approved test.
With the Nissan doing its best sitting duck impression, it was show time.
And they missed, apparently, shooting too soon. That’s what everybody said.
The next attempt also missed, but the third time’s the charm! For another miss. And you couldn’t get any closer as this rocket flew under the rear bumper. What. Are. The. Odds?
Three months of kinda science-y work culminated in zero hits and three rockets left. The options are to try three more times with one rocket or one time with three rockets. Of course, it’s gonna be the latter.
But even that didn’t work. Well, it did, but not in the way they intended.
Instead of launching concurrently, rockets one and two went consecutively. Number three was seemingly stuck and subsequently aborted. But the Nissan had been hit! The first rocket hit the van in the B-pillar, while the second rocket launched into BFE.
Hooray! Jubilation! A round of drinks?! Nope, there was still one rocket left and a relatively intact minivan asking to be destroyed. Let’s just say a new launchpad was created to accommodate the now-red shell. IYKYK. You can check out the endgame via this link.