Mark VII was intended to add a new control system. Installation of this was delayed by the Olympics - with police rumored to be conducting random anti-terror searches on public transport, it was judged too dangerous to transport a box of homemade electronics and wireing that may be mistaken for a bomb. Instead a new chamber was added to contain shrapnel. A sandblasting chamber modified to stand on end.
With this, we could finally achieve one of our great plans: The fastest ever scrambled egg.
With the olympics still delaying the installation of the new control box, there was time to refine the equipment further. Most importantly, this meant the use of a new high-speed camera. A Praktica DVC 10.10 FHD. Not a dedicated high-speed camera, but a budget low-cost video camera that happens to support a 240FPS mode. A true high-speed camera remains prohibatively expensive - but the Praktica can perform acceptably, even if limited to a very low resolution and with evident sensor noise. Like all high-speed cameras, high illumination is essential - for this, we used a 400W security floodlight.
432x240 at 240FPS. It's as good as I could afford.
We also discovered that the equipment is no longer capable of crushing cans. The new blast chamber requires longer connecting cables, and the increased inductance is a serious impediment to the type of ultra-fast pulses needed for electromagnetic crushing efforts. Plans are already being drawn up to fix this by mounting the capacitors on the rear of the chamber - not just for the reduced inductance, but as a means to render the equipment more compact and less prone to accidential damage.
The olympics finish, but the paralympics prolong the delay yet again. Still unable to install the new controls, instead we exploded bananas. One new item was added: A Faraday bell, which served briefly as an indicator of charge. Before any video was made of this, an unfortunate malfunction occured resulting in explosive disassembly.