It seems as though [Nathan] has taken some serious inspiration from the Warthog. The iconic armored buggy from Halo video games has a turret mounted to the roof. Although [Nathan]’s buggy only shoots paintballs from its turret.
Mounting paintball markers (guns) to various objects such as vehicles, robots, or other machines isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems. Vibrations from anything can transfer through a clamping system and cause paintballs to break. This, of course, inhibits the functionality of the marker and is a messy cleanup to boot. Then there has to be a way to fire the paintballs, which is usually handled by soldering to the electrical connections in the marker. And the entire rig has to stand up to the normal jostling and sudden turns from the buggy.
[Nathan] has solved these problems first by creating a custom fast-change mount that allows any malfunctioning markers to be changed rapidly. The electronic firing mechanism is handled by an ATtiny microcontroller and there is a custom electrical connection that is automatically made when the marker is bolted to the mount.
The new system allows markers to be changed in about 30 seconds, much better than any other system. Maybe in the future [Nathan] can upgrade the buggy’s turret to accommodate a paintball minigun.
Oh, you mean the minigun build that had a bunch of useless spinning barrels with a hacked up gun in the centre which is where the balls really came from? That “minigun”?
Yeah, he totally needs one of those. It’s not like the guy cares about efficiency enough to invent his own quick-swap system.
“Only paintballs!! 0.o ” hahaha awesome
no video? :(
https://www.youtube.com/user/PaintRaceInc
Ah, it’s truly hilarious to see someone turn up with such a thingy and get completely drowned in paint once he enters the field :D
http://paint-race.com/about
They run on a separate, closed track, not a paintball field. I’ve been out and it was a blast. Definitely closer to Mario Kart than Halo though.
Ah, that’s different :) Sounds like fun, then :)
I remember an old event where we pulled an enclosed cart through the woods. We would shoot out of the windows of the “tank”. We also had grenades (surgical tubing pumped with paint and stopped with a ball bearing.) Someone threw a gernade that didn’t go off, the other team picked it up and whipped it back through the window taking out all 5 off us. Good times.
The first thing I thought of was people on foot getting run over.
Yeah.
It’s run on a separate, closed track.
Yes, they couldn’t stand up to anything that could move laterally, and there are for sure some safety issues. We corralled them off into their own track.
Less Halo, more Mario Kart; the buggies have sensors in the back and bottom.