lateral thinking - The Cryptic Lab +2+

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN'T LOOKED AT MY QUESTION BEFORE, The Cryptic Lab *1*, YOU WON'T UNDERSTAND MUCH HERE!

I'm glad people enjoyed the first part of the puzzle. I didn't think any of you would, and neither did I think that anyone could solve it. So without further ado, here is the second part of the 5 part series, The Cryptic Lab +2+.

LAST WARNING! (seriously tho please don't read this puzzle if you haven't looked at the first one)

You picked the padlock, and the door opened. You walked into the next room, expecting it to look different, but it looked exactly the same as the previous one. The mysterious man started to speak through a speaker in the corner of the room again.

So you made it to the next room. Not a surprise, test subject 137. Turns out 43% of all the test subjects were able to pass the puzzle. But this is a whole new level. Only 14% of all the test subjects made it past this room. You might have figured out by now that we are putting you through this to test what percentage of humans have, say, superior intellect. Also acknowledge the fact that comfort is earned. I have given you some shoes, if your feet are getting cold. I've changed the rules for this puzzle, so good luck.

P.S. This room is also a furnace. Don't die.

You start to think how much you want to punch this guy in the face.

You look to the right, and there are sneakers there. You slipped them on. It's the kind of sneakers that have wool inside to warm your toes. Ahh, nice and toasty.

There seems to be two compartments in the wall. The first has some pulleys, the second is a door, shut tight. You approached the first one. There are two pulleys attached to handles facing sideways, toward each other:

You pulled the pulleys together, and the second compartment opened its doors, revealing a rectangular piece of wood the size of a frying pan handle with a big crack on the tip of it. Looks like plywood; you can bend it easily. You tried to go and grab it, but as soon as you released the pulleys, they slid back to their original position, and the door shut tight.

You looked at the new door. It didn't seem to have a lock, so you tried to open it. But it was locked from the other side; You peeked through the small space in between the door and the door frame to see that a thin wooden board was blocking the way. You need something to cut the wood through the small space.

A thin sheet of glass laid on the wall. You think that if you break it, You can use the shards to cut the wood. But thinking about that, breaking it with your hands would, well, break your hands as well. And even if you do manage to break it, the glass is so sharp, you'd cut yourself if you tried to cut the wood. You also think about using the glass to hold the pulleys together - No, wait, that might damage the pulleys.

Finally, you read the note with the rules on the wall:

Do not break any of the compartments; Do not open the second compartment without using the pulley; Do not break the door, the walls, the roof, or the ceiling. Don't take the wool out of the sneakers (Do you know how much I paid for those?). Do not break the wood blocking the door by shaking the door very hard. We've already had several contestants do that; they all got roasted. Good luck, don't die.

You sit down and think again. How will you get to the next room?

OBJECTIVES: {BREAK THE PIECE OF WOOD BLOCKING THE DOOR}

Once you've finished this puzzle, you can go to The Cryptic Lab ~3~!

Answer

The first thing I figure out,

The handles are shaped such that after pulling on them, you can thread one handle through the other, and they will both hold each other open.

Now I have the plywood, but what to do with it? I'll return to that later.

Breaking the glass seemed like a good idea, so I'll take off one of my new shoes and chuck it at the pane, shattering the glass from a distance. Being very careful not to step on glass with my non-covered foot, I'll go retrieve my other shoe, gotta keep my toes warm.

Now I have a lot of broken glass and some thin plywood.

Maybe I could embed a particularly large shard within the crack at the top of the wood, and use it as a makeshift saw to cut the wood in two!

Wooden Barricade broken! Bring on the next puzzle!