Coilosapien: Rail gun on yer robot

posted Feb 13th 2007 10:51am by Will O'Brien
filed under: laser hacks, robots hacks

It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything new on the robosapien front, but I’d say that a laser sighted rail gun for our favorite robots is worthy. From the video, it appears to have decent accuracy and a fair sized clip. It’s creator, [Marcus] says that he’ll have a tutorial up soon. Thanks to [Robert] for the tip. (Update: The tip says it’s a mini rail gun, so I’m not sure if it’s a rail gun or a coil gun.)

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Comments [23]

Reader Comments

Dude, that is so awesome.

Now all we need are sharks with laser beams on their heads….

Posted at 10:57 am on Feb 13th, 2007 by Uday

If it has a solenoid, it’s not a railgun, it’s a coilgun.

A railgun literally has 2 rails, which the armature conducts between and slides along.

A coilgun uses a coil of wire (solenoid) to magnetically “pull” the ammunition forward. This requires precise timing to stop the magnetic field once the projectile has reached the center of the solenoid so that it’s momentum will continue it out of the coil.

Posted at 11:03 am on Feb 13th, 2007 by Satiagraha

ah, gumbi in the crotch. well worth it.

Posted at 11:26 am on Feb 13th, 2007 by phreak

poor gumbi… looked like that hurt.. nice idea.. i like the flame on the right arm..

Posted at 1:37 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by TGBM

its a coilgun

Posted at 2:47 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by Alex McCown

THAT WAS FREAKING AWSOME!!!!!(CAPSLOCK ON)

Posted at 2:56 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by freakking awsome!

Who cares, it’s still cool as hell!!!

I can’t wait for the tutorial, I want to mod mine!!!

Posted at 3:45 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by CyberZeroCool

coil gun, spoil gun….

it’s a *gauss* gun.
sounds cooler.

Posted at 6:24 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by joelanders

could be a gauss gun. i’m waiting for the tute o be up before believing it. seems a it to much power compared to other projects i’ve seen of a similar nature. to get that much energy into a projectile should require at least two coils and a reasonably sized cap bank, neither of which i see.

Posted at 6:30 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by giskard

Ahh, poor gumby.

That is very cool, I wonder how many FPS that projectile fires at…

Posted at 6:35 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by Schmoopie

Could be something much less complicated…
Possibly a simple solenoid that fires the ball bearings.

Posted at 8:37 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by Andrew

very nice mod. i think that face is just too innocent looking to be armed though :. I’d really like to see the tut too, a rail/coil/gauss gun always comes across as something big and bulky, or at least within the realm of putting one on a child’s toy.

Posted at 9:44 pm on Feb 13th, 2007 by paragraph

I’d like to see people complaining about the quality of hacks when faced with this one- absolutely inspired (especially the laser sight). giskard, i agree with your concerns about the tiny size and apparently high power of this, and I didn’t think gravity-feed clips worked with rail/coil guns- i’m sure all will become clear with the walkthrough. i can’t wait for that, i have a couple of camera flash units and a drum of .177 bb ammo at home doing nothing :)

Posted at 7:58 am on Feb 14th, 2007 by PKM

Holy crap that’s good!

Posted at 11:21 am on Feb 14th, 2007 by strider_mt2k

Hey HackADay, thanks for printing the news tip, you guys rock.

As I said in my news tip to you, the credit belongs clearly to Evosapien Team member Marcus who created the hack and made the video. You can see more of his robot hacks here:

http://www.evosapien.com/robosapien-hack/marcus/

Thanks,
Robert

Posted at 2:36 pm on Feb 14th, 2007 by Robert Oschler

Coil guns/Gauss guns are very simple devices, and the physics/electronics in them are much simpler than that of rail guns. You can easily make a decently powerful coil gun with a soda straw, some enameled wire, and a disposable camera flash. It’ll shoot BBs about 10 – 15 feet depending on how good you’re winding is, and staples even further. Add a few more caps and maybe some extra winding stages and you have quite the bb shooter.

Posted at 2:47 pm on Feb 14th, 2007 by Yan

The how-to for the coilgun is up- it is a true coilgun using the traditional camera flash parts. The mechanism is prett ingenious, well worth a read.

Posted at 5:58 pm on Feb 18th, 2007 by PKM

yes this looks like it is infact a real coil-gun. at 330 volts and a considerable capacitance, that’s a fair bit of energy stored there. definitely a hand behind the back project, you don’t want that voltage across your chest. neat loading mechanism however.

Posted at 8:53 am on Feb 20th, 2007 by giskard

I for one welcome our gauss gun wielding, Robosapien overlords.

Posted at 5:26 pm on Feb 20th, 2007 by kevin

This rocks im so going to do this

Posted at 11:52 am on Apr 3rd, 2007 by keegen Hunts

Guys! Remember that those things can fire things faster than a bullet.
They can be deadly :D!
I however also wanna make my own!

Posted at 10:57 am on Jul 3rd, 2007 by Zac

wooow it’s realy rocks.

great idea great mod.

thanks

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Posted at 5:08 pm on Apr 21st, 2009 by Loolillefly