This Guy Stole William Osman’s Squib Design for Mr Beast’s Squid Game

I would bet real money (seriously, make me an offer) that roughly 100% of the people in the maker community love practical effects. And if you want a practical effect for the result of someone being hit with a high-speed projectile, you need a squib. That is a special device, usually worn under an actor’s clothing, the explodes on demand, ejecting life fluids in a fun and gruesome way. William Osman built a bunch for Mr Beast’s Squid Game series, but never released the design. So, ChromaLock reverse engineered that to create OpenSquib.

This is an open source wirelessly activated squib that anyone can use for their own films and pranks. But it is also a copy of the squib that Osman built for Mr Beast, which definitely wasn’t open source. Osman runs Open Sauce, so I’ll just place the blame for that on Mr Beast or the fear of ATF retribution. To make OpenSquib, ChromaLock had to carefully analyze the available content for Osman’s design and make some educated guesses about the hardware involved.

ChromaLock started by examining the functionality of Osman’s squibs. They’re activated remotely and, when triggered, they “pop” a small charge that punches a hole in a sealed plastic sack full of liquid that, charitably, resembles apple juice. Ideally, that popping action will also put a hole in the wearer’s shirt, so the liquid spurts out in a cinematic fashion that is just tame enough for YouTube.

There aren’t many legal options in the US for charges that can do the job, so ChromaLock quickly narrowed those down to off-the-shelf rocket igniters. Knowing that, ChromaLock made heavy use of CSI-style enhancement to zoom in and squint real hard at photos of Osman’s squibs. With that technique, he was able to identify the components, including an Espressif ESP-WROOM-02 microcontroller, a boost converter, and so on.

The operation is actually quite simple: the ESP-WROOM-02 receives a signal, via the ESP-NOW wireless protocol, and uses a MOSFET to send current from AA batteries through the igniter. That obediently ignites and does enough damage to pop the juice bag, which is just plastic closed with a hot impulse sealer.

That activation signal comes from ChromaLock’s PC, which runs a server for hosting a web interface he can access from his phone. When he selects and triggers a specific squib, the PC tells an ESP32 dev board to send a signal to all of the squibs. That signal contains a unique ID and only the squib with the matching ID responds, popping itself to audience applause.

And because OpenSquib is open source, you can find all of the files on GitHub to build your own — just watch your back for ATF agents and Mr Beast’s henchmen.