Pop Pop Boat

It finally arrived from Japan today. It's Pop Pop boat from the 60's found in a huge toy cache in a defunct Japanese factory. It's actually not that special...I just like cool toys that use interesting physics. It's a Pop Pop Boat! If you've seen Ponyo, then you've seen one in action.

The instructions are in German, so I had to translate them on line to figure out how to make it work.

It comes with everything you need. Candles, straw, boilers, and of course the boat.

You put the lit candle in the back.

And the boat takes off.

Here is a video of it in action.

*For those that are interested in how a pop boat works. I'll briefly explain.
There are two pipes coming off the back that go into the boat into a boiler. Before you start you use a small straw to blow water up into the boiler. the water usually doesn't stay inside, but it leaves water droplets. So when the candle is lit and put under the boiler it quickly heats those droplets and turns them to steam, and since steam expands, it's quickly pushed out the back of the pipes.
Once all the steam is gone, the heat creates a vacuum inside the boiler, this causes water to be sucked back in. Starting the whole process over again. This happens several times a second. The pop comes from the stream expanding and contracting rapidly inside the boiler.