On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, Mike Rosing wrote:
with a lid. There were two contacts mounted on the lid, and a metal plate in the pot, laid on the layer of dried pea. You added water, the pea sterted to swell and rise the metal plate. When the plate touched the contacts, you were far away.
That's a pretty nead idea for a detonator. Especially in a haystack :-)
Together with mechanical (or, even better, chemical) ignitors you can achieve a timer construction completely without metal parts. Doesn't have to necessarily serve as a detonator. If used to control some mechanical setup, can trigger virtually anything that needs gentle pushing of something. A bit medievalish technology, but can withstand an EMP hit. Which could one day become a nicely sized advantage...