Laser Lighting a Jack-o-Lantern

Unfortunately demonstrations like this are near impossible to do for science outreach demonstrations shows. You can't guarantee that everyone in the audience will keep their laser safety glasses on (assuming you can get a hold of that many glasses on budget). You have to settle for doing something that fits into a box that can protect everything outside of it, although that kind of limits visibility and how much you can fit in there. But I've still seen that to be enough to show a balloon popping, or more fun, popping a colored balloon inside a transparent one.

Also means showing off the actual big lasers in use for some research projects is right out, considering most employees and research staff, outside of a short list, are barred from seeing it run for liability reasons.