How to Build a Potato Launcher

Remove the electric sparker from the long nose lighter. To accomplish this, unscrew the screws on the side of the lighter. Once the shell of the lighter pops off, pull the electric sparker out. It will look like a button, which is connected to a long wire. Do not squeeze the sparker, or it'll give you a nice little shock.

Shorten the wire attached to the electric sparker to about an inch. Do this by slicing the remainder off with your box cutter.

Cut the bottom off your travel sized medicine tube. Using your box cutter, carefully remove the bottom by poking a hole in the center and working the sharp edge around until the bottom is completely removed.

Press the thumb tacks into your medicine tube about a third of the way down from the top. Place the tacks next to each other. Note that the tacks might take a little extra force to puncture through the hard plastic of the tube.

Attach a piece of your scrap wire to the other end of the sparker. (There is currently one end that does not have wire on it.) Do this using a piece of your black tape.

Wrap the ends of the wires around the metal of the two thumb tacks. This will be done on the outside of the medicine tube.

Hollow out your pen so that just the shell remains. This means removing the tip, ink stem and cap on the top of the pen.

Cover one end of your pen with enough black tape so that it fits snugly inside the medicine tube. (This will take quite a bit of tape. You'll be wrapping for a good minute or so.)

Secure the pen chamber into the medicine tube by adding additional black tape on the outside of the joint. This will keep the barrel attached after you fire.

Test your spark by clicking the electric sparker. As you click it, you should see a spark firing between the two ends of the thumb tacks on the inside of the medicine tube.

Cap the end of your potato gun by screwing the remaining end back onto the medicine tube.

Press the end of the potato launcher into a piece of potato. This will place a slug of potato into the barrel.

Push the ignition and fire your potato launcher.