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Australian YouTube channel How Ridiculous is known for fearlessly pulling off bold stunts, each of which seems to always outdo the last. In a quest to conquer their biggest challenge yet, the YouTubers decided to take their channel to new heights — to the stratosphere, to be exact.
Who are How Ridiculous?
How Ridiculous is made up of Brett Stanford, Scott Gaunson, and Derek Herron, who have been making videos on the channel since 2009, gaining over 19 million subscribers since then. Those who follow How Ridiculous will also be familiar with the channel's fourth member, Rexy, a stuffed t-rex toy and the How Ridiculous mascot. Rexy is used as a crash test dummy for the channel's more destructive stunts — and he has the scars to show for it.
The Mission:
With a brand new Rexy-inspired merch collection on the way, How Ridiculous came to us looking to celebrate Rexy in a truly unique way: sending him on a journey to space and back. In true How Ridiculous fashion, they couldn't help but add an element of challenge by conducting a race to be the first to get to Rexy once he's back on the ground. This featured challenges along the way, written by the guys from How Ridiculous themselves, and given out to each of them randomly.
Naturally, when they came to us for help in sending Rexy to space, we were eager to be a part of the project. Our main challenge was engineering a mechanism that would detach Rexy at the peak of the flight, and ensuring that we'd be able to track him on his descent. If this hadn't happened, there would have been no way for Brett, Scott, and Derek to find him and Rexy could've been lost forever.
Sending Rexy Into Space with How Ridiculous
The How Ridiculous mascot was delivered to our HQ and our team got to work. The dino was fitted with a tracking mechanism and harnessed onto a custom-made craft, which was engineered to activate at the flight's highest altitude to release Rexy on a separate parachute, which would begin his journey back to Earth. We were now ready for How Ridiculous to launch Rexy into space.
The How Ridiculous team came to the UK in September to conduct the launch, visiting us at our HQ. The craft carrying Rexy was attached to a high-altitude latex balloon filled with lighter-than-air hydrogen gas and launched from our site in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Rexy reached altitudes of over 100,000 feet before being detached from the craft and beginning his journey back to Earth.
The Race to Rexy
Brett, Scott and Derek split up and raced to see who could get to Rexy first — but they had to complete some challenges before they did. The boys raced around the Yorkshire countryside having a proper English cup of tea with a biscuit and singing to strangers (just to name a few).
The dinosaur came to land in the East Riding of Yorkshire over two hours after he was launched from Sheffield, descending through a thunderstorm for a touch of added drama.
If you're wondering who got there first, you can watch How Ridiculous' video documenting the race for Rexy below.
It was great to be a part of this project, and in the spirit of How Ridiculous, we thoroughly enjoyed taking on a challenge!
If you are interested in a space launch of your own, get in touch with our team to discuss your idea further.