Hack a Day » SpudGun

How to properly dispose of fruitcake

Eliot — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 03:32:35 +0000

While doing serious fruitcake research, (no, really) we stumbled across the Great Fruitcake Toss held every January in Colorado. The particular entry above caught our eye. Omega 380 was built by a group of Boeing engineers and currently holds the distance record of 1,420feet. It’s a large compressed air cannon. All pressure is human generated using an exercise bike turning a pump. Apparently the team’s first contest entry was a classic surgical tubing slingshot. It eventually broke down during a very cold year, so they switched to this newer design. You can see more videos on the Operation Fruitcake blog.

Posted in news, transportation hacks

Taser ammo for your spud gun

Will O'Brien — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:31:00 +0000

We definitely don’t recommend trying this one, but [Tony] sent in this odd twist on the old potato launcher. A pair of physics students put together a Taser like potato sized bullet. On impact, two metal pins are inserted into the target, delivering an electric shock. Depending on the size of the capacitor and amount of charge delivered, it can be a (sort of) non-lethal or lethal shock. We’d prefer not to be shot with either one.

[via pspmod]

The 2008 Shmooball Gun

Will O'Brien — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:41:00 +0000

I caught up with [Larry] from pauldotcom.com and got a quick walk-through of his Shmooball gun. After several less successful attempts, this one worked pretty damn well and featured a distinctive sound that caused a notable glimmer of fear in the eyes of the speakers. *cough*[renderman]*cough*. Read on for the secrets of the Shmooball gun.

The gun is pneumatic, so pressure was supplied from a 7-800psi CO2 paintball gun through this quick disconnect. [Larry] needed an adapter to connect to the 1/4″ regulator input. He made the small chamber, with each connection, and found that it acted as a helpful expansion chamber for the gas supply.

The lower pressure storage chamber is fed about 100psi from the regulator. To release the pressure to the firing chamber, he used this electric water sprinkler solenoid. These take around 12VDC and slightly slow the pressure expansion into the firing chamber

The trigger was built using a simple safety mechanism – two momentary push buttons have to be depressed to fire the sprinkler solenoid.

The get a good seal on the Shmooball, he cut down a beer cozy to act as reusable wadding.

The wadding fits quite well around the 2.75″ Shmooball. The twine keeps the wadding from going the way of the Shmooball.

A velcro mounted laser pointer provides quick aim for chasing tricky speakers.

Thanks to [Larry] for giving us the tour!