This Maglite is a BB Gun

Maglite BB Gun

This innocent looking Maglite houses a piston and barrel, making it into a functional pneumatic BB gun. A Maglite was chosen due to its high durability, and easy access to the internals. A schrader valve sticks out of the battery cap, which allows the gun to be charged using a standard fitting. A brass tube is used as the barrel, and a piston controls firing. Firing the gun is simple. First, … [Read more...]

How to build an extremely powerful nerf gun

pneumatic-nerf-gun

[TopCityGear] was trying out a piece of PVC as a blow gun barrel when he thought he'd try to give it a little more power than what his lungs could put out. What he came up with is this air-powered Nerf gun that definitely leaves a mark. The video after the break is a show-and-tell, a build log, and finally a demonstration of its power. He adds a nail to a Nerf dart and drives it through a board, … [Read more...]

Controlling a spud gun with an Arduino

controller

We're a long way from the Aquanet-powered plastic pipe spud guns of our youth. [smirpab] over on the SpudFiles forum posted a work in progress of an amazing replica AS50 sniper rifle he's building. This pneumatic cannon goes above and beyond any air-powered rifle we've seen with an Arduino that is able to switch between automatic, semi-automatic, and burst modes with an LCD display and a rate of … [Read more...]

Pneumatic car launcher is actually more than just a hacker’s fantasy

pneumatic-car-launcher

So if you had to launch a car through these goal posts how would you do it? Certainly not with a slingshot (although we might have gone with a steam-powered catapult a-la an aircraft carrier). That maroon car with the white stripe is about to make the flight thanks to a very powerful pneumatic launcher. We don't usually attend the demolition derby, so this sort of thing is new to us. And we … [Read more...]

How to build a competitive battle robot

competetive-battle-robot

Ever wonder what's under the hood with a competitive battle robot like this one? It's usually a big secret as teams don't care to give their competition any help. But [AlexHrn] decided not only to give us a peek, but also shows us his step-by-step build process for Phoenix, the 30 pound flipping battle robot. [Alex] has already seen quite a bit of success with a different robot, but he couldn't … [Read more...]

Old timey UAV cameras

pidgeon-cameras

These brave birds are weapons of war. Well, not these actual birds... they're just models used for this photograph courtesy of a taxidermist. But their living relatives were used to take spy photographs during World War I. [Dr. Julius Neurbronner] didn't suddenly jump into the field of avian photography. He, like his father before him, used homing pigeons to deliver prescription drugs in loads … [Read more...]

A Full Auto PVC Battery Gun

full-auto-battery-gun

So what's better than a battery gun? A full auto pneumatic battery gun of course!  [ukilliheal], decided to build one of these, and show us the results in his video after the break.  After turning the gun on, this contraption shoots at a pretty impressive rate of fire (although, apparently not as fast as some of his other experiments).  Apparently batteries can do a pretty fair amount of damage … [Read more...]