Virtual Archery Game Makes Practicing Convenient, Safe, And Inexpensive

March 2, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 13 Comments

Inspired by playing The Legend of Zelda video game series, Cornell University students [Mohamed Abdellatif] and [Michael Ross] created a Virtual Archery game as their ECE 4760 Final Project. The game consists of a bow equipped with virtual arrows and a target placed about 20 ft away. The player has three rounds to get as high of a score as possible. A small display monitor shows the instructions, and an image of where the shot actually hit on the target.

Pressing a button on the front of the bow readies a virtual arrow. A stretch sensor communicates with a microcontroller to determine when the bow string has been drawn and released. When the bow is drawn, a line of LEDs lights up to simulate a notched arrow. The player aims, and factors in for gravity. An accelerometer calculates the orientation of the bow when fired. The calculated shot is then shown on the display monitor along with your score.

This immediately makes me think of Laser Tag, and feels like a product that could easily be mass marketed. I’m surprised it hasn’t been already. Good work guys.

[via Hackedgadgets]

Check out the video demonstration after the break:

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Airsoft Turret Has Turn, Tilt, And Auto-feed To Keep Those BBs Flying

February 15, 2013 by Mike Szczys 39 Comments

airsoft-turret-with-laser-cut-parts

Yet another project that proves you need to acquire a laser cutter. This Airsoft turret rotates, tilts, and includes a hopper for ammo.

All of the pieces were cut from acrylic. The base includes a bracket which keeps the large rotating gear level by sandwiching it between the layers. That and the tilt mechanism are pretty straight forward. The module responsible for loading the BBs is pretty neat though. It uses a gear with round teeth the same diameter as the ammo. Once a BB is picked up it is forced upward into the tubing that feeds the gun. Get the full picture from the demo video after the break.

The one thing [The Liquider] is wondering about is how to provide feedback for the tilt and rotate functions. We can’t think of an easier way than to use simple rotary encoders. The Arduino Mega he wishes to use as a driver will have no problem interfacing with reflectance sensors and the acrylic makes it simple to mount this type of black and white encoder wheel.

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if firecracker-crossbows are outlawed, only outlaws will have firecracker-crossbows!

The Firecracker Crossbow

February 12, 2013 by Jeremy Cook 40 Comments

If there are two things that we love at [HAD], giant German firecrackers, and medieval weapons would have to be close to the top of this list. This clever hack gives us both, with a toy crossbow capable of both lighting and launching firecrackers to a safe distance. We didn’t see a blooper reel, but being ready to run in case of a malfunction is probably a good idea as well.

The post has some pictures of the mechanism, but at its heart, this hack consists of ripping up a grill igniter, and placing the contacts into a shortened-stock toy crossbow. Safety is of course encouraged, as much as it can be with this type of device. It’s especially important here as apparently “firecracker” roughly translates in German to “small sticks of high-explosive,” or possibly “road flare.”

Be sure to check out this modded crossbow in action in the video after the break!

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Military Steals Idea Of Anyone Who Ever Tied A Cellphone Camera To Quadcopter

February 5, 2013 by Mike Szczys 62 Comments

spy-helicopter

Check out the toy this solder is using. It’s a tiny remote-controlled helicopter. The thing comes in a kit that includes a small tablet through which the nose-mounted camera image can be viewed. These are in use in Afghanistan by the UK Military. The purpose is to help protect foot soldiers by allowing them to perform discrete reconnaissance. What would you pay for this type of life saving technology? How does $31 million for 160 units sound? For that price we expect eight propellers and a cinema quality camera.

The drone is manufactured by Prox Dynamics. They’ve been in development since 2008 and you can bet that a lot of that time went into making it “inaudible” which is the main difference we see between this and hobby-built versions. For now you’ll have to deal with trying to make your own since they will only sell to the government.

The best we can do for you when it comes to video of the thing is prototyping footage from 2009 (after the break). If you have a link to a newer clip we’d love to see it in the comments.

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Shooting Ping Pong Balls At Mach 1.2

February 4, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 48 Comments

Ping%20pong%20gun

Next time you’re in a Nerf gun battle, you better hope you’ve got this absurdly powerful ping pong ball gun. It shoots common celluloid spheres at over 400 meters per second, or Mach 1.2.

This ping pong gun is the work of [Mark French], [Craig Zehrung], and [Jim Stratton] at Purdue University. As you would expect, the gun is powered by compressed air housed in a length of 3 inch schedule 80 PVC pipe. One end of the pressure vessel is sealed with a PVC end cap, while the other is closed off with a doubled up piece of duct tape to contain the pressure.

The interesting bit of the build is a de Laval nozzle between the pressure vessel and the barrel. Just like a rocket engine nozzle, this bit of machined PVC compresses the air coming through the burst duct tape seal and allows it to expand again, propelling the muzzle-loaded ping pong ball at supersonic speeds.

The guys have written a report on their gun, you can grab that over on arxiv.

Print Your Own 30 Round AR15 Magazine

January 15, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 333 Comments

Here’s a 30 round magazine for an AR15, made just in time to add to the national conversation over things that look scary.

This magazine is the product of Defense Distributed who have previously graced the front page of Hackaday with their 3D printed scary bang bang machine. While continuing to work on their WikiWeapon – a gun printable on a home-built 3D printer – the team decided they could subvert more obtuse gun laws by making their own high-capacity magazine.

The magazine is printed on an extremely expensive commercial 3D printer, but the team is working to make it printable on more affordable models. The prototype magazine survived unloading a full 30 rounds. Video demo of that after the break.

Also on Defense Distributed’s DEFCAD is a sound moderator for paintball and air guns. While the design isn’t yet finalized for those big scary assault weapons, it should be possible to modify it for the big guns. One of their next projects is a stock, hopefully one that includes a hinge.

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Home Built Stun Baton Turns You Into A Cop From Demolition Man

January 7, 2013 by Mike Szczys 50 Comments

It seems much like a cattle prod, but [Pode Coet] definitely had people in mind when he built this stun baton. It’s not for the faint of heart — especially since a wrong move could stop your ticker cold. But the design and fabrication are top-notch, and he didn’t hold back when it comes to build images and details.

The enclosure is a hunk of PCV pipe with a cap on each end. The business end includes two electrodes separated by a 10mm air gap. The spark has no trouble jumping across that gap, and if you get it close enough to the victim it’ll use their body as a path of least resistance. The butt end of the baton features the charging port which takes 5VDC power and a pair of LEDs for feedback. This power port feeds a charger stored within to top off the Lithium cell which itself only puts out about 3.8V. This potential is fed into a boost circuit to ramp up to 16V before feeding a Royer circuit which jumps it up to 900V. That is connected to the final stage which gets it to the target of 10kV!

You can see and hear a demonstration of the baton in the clip after the break. To bad [Caleb] wasn’t around to take the thing for a proper test drive.

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