Electromagnetic can crushers are Pretty Fucking Cool. Essentially, one quickly pulses a massive amount of current through a coil wrapped around an empty aluminum can, inducing an opposing magnetic field in the can and causing the sides of the can to push in a bit (or in extreme cases, a lot, resulting in the can fracturing and the halves flying out from either side). Energy storage of this magnitude (my recently eBay'd pulse cap weighs in at 120 uF / 5 kV) is *exceptionally dangerous* even for those of us familiar with high voltage safety, so a good deal of this project will focus on designing the apparatus to be safe and reliable.