Pez Blaster Shoots Candy Dangerously Fast

July 3, 2025 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

You could use a little pocket-sized Pez dispenser if you’re a humble, reserved person. Or, you could follow the example of [Backhaul Studios], and build a dangerously powerful blaster that shoots Pez fast enough to shatter them into pieces. Just don’t aim it at your own mouth.

As the video explains, Pez is really the perfect candy for this application. It’s compact, hard, and already designed to be dispensed via a magazine. It’s thus not a big stretch to set it up to be fired out of a pistol-like blaster. The build is of the flywheel type, where a pair of counter-rotating wheels fling the candy out at great speed. The wheels themselves are spun up to high speed with a pair of small brushless motors, running off hobby speed controllers and lithium-ion batteries. A simple trigger mechanism dispenses the rectangular candies into the wheel mechanism, sending them flying out of the blaster at will. It’s all 3D-printed, designed specifically for the purpose of high-speed candy delivery.

The video goes into great detail on the design, from the development of the TPU treads on the flywheels and other details that helped improve the effectiveness of the design. The final build shoots Pez fast enough that they practically detonate upon hitting a surface.

We’ve featured some innovative work in this space from [Backhaul Studios] before—the condiment cannon was really quite something. Video after the break.

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Nerf Blaster Becomes Remote Control Turret

May 24, 2025 by Lewin Day 5 Comments

For most of us, turrets that aim and shoot at things are the sole domain of video games. However, they’re remarkably easy to build with modern technology, as [meub] demonstrates. Meet the SwarmTurret.

The build is based around an existing foam blaster, namely the Nerf Swarmfire. This blaster was chosen for being easy to integrate into the build, thanks to its motorized direct-plunger firing mechanism and electronic trigger. It also has the benefit of being far less noisy and quicker to fire than most flywheel blasters.

For this build, the Nerf blaster was slimmed down and fitted to a turret base built with hobby servos and 3D printed components. The blaster is also fitted with a webcam for remote viewing. A Raspberry Pi is running the show, serving up a video feed and allowing aiming commands to be sent via a Websockets-based interface. Thus, you can login via a web browser on your phone or laptop, and fire away at targets to your heart’s content.

We’ve featured some great turrets before, like this Portal-themed unit.

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Building A Nerf-like Rocket Launcher With Airburst Capability

March 1, 2025 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

Nerf blasters typically fire small foam darts or little foam balls. [Michael Pick] wanted to build something altogether more devastating. To that end, he created a rocket launcher with an advanced air burst capability, intended to take out enemies behind cover.

Unlike Nerf’s own rocket launchers, this build doesn’t just launch a bigger foam dart. Instead, it launches an advanced smart projectile that releases lots of smaller foam submunitions at a set distance after firing.

The rocket launcher itself is assembled out of off-the-shelf pipe and 3D printed components. An Arduino Uno runs the show, hooked up to a Bluetooth module and a laser rangefinder. The rangefinder determines the distance to the target, and the Bluetooth module then communicates this to the rocket projectile itself so it knows when to release its foamy payload after launch. Releasing the submunitions is achieved with a small microservo in the projectile which opens a pair of doors in flight, scattering foam on anyone below. The rockets are actually fired via strong elastic bands, with an electronic servo-controlled firing mechanism.

We’ve featured some great Nerf builds over the years, like this rocket-blasting robot.

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3D Printed Blaster Does It With Compliant Components

December 17, 2024 by Donald Papp 20 Comments

The ease of integrating bendy parts into designs is one of 3D printing’s strengths. A great example of this is [uhltimate]’s six-shot blaster which integrates several compliant mechanisms. The main blaster even prints in one piece, so there’s not even any assembly required.

The ergonomics are unconventional, but the design is pretty clever.

The blaster itself has three main parts: the trigger, the sear, and the striker. Each of them rely on compliant mechanisms in order to function. The user pulls back the trigger, which hooks into and pulls back the striker. When the trigger is pulled back far enough, the sear releases the striker. This zips forward and slams into a waiting projectile, sending it flying.

The other interesting part is the projectiles and magazine in which they sit. The magazine fits onto the front of the blaster and pulling the trigger allows the magazine to drop down, putting the next projectile into firing position. After the final round is fired, the empty magazine falls away. It’s a pretty clever design, even if the ergonomics are a little unusual and it relies on gravity in order to feed. Tilt it too far sideways or upside down, and it won’t load properly.

We’ve seen compliant mechanisms used for projectile firing before, but this design really raises the bar in the way it does more than just firing the striker.

3D printing allows rapid iteration of designs, which makes devices that rely on compliant mechanisms much easier to develop and fine-tune.

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Thermoelectric Blaster Flings Ice Projectiles

November 11, 2024 by Lewin Day 37 Comments

Nerf blasters are fun and all, but flinging foam can get old. Picking it up again, even moreso. This blaster from [Concept Crafted Creations] gets around that annoying problem by shooting ice instead.

The concept was to build a better water gun with longer range—and what better way to do that than by shooting ice instead? The blaster relies on a PVC air tank for propulsion—one of the most controversial design choices you can make if you read the comments around here. It’s charged by a small air compressor, and dumping the air is handled by a solenoid valve. So far, so simple.

What makes this blaster special is where it gets its ammunition from. The blaster uses a custom CNC-machined block from PCBway to act as a freeze chamber. Water enters an aluminum block, and is cooled by thermoelectric elements. Once the projectile has frozen inside the chamber, it’s stuck in place, so the chamber is then heated by a small heating element. This melts the projectile just enough to allow it to be fired.

It’s a complicated but ingenious way of building an ice blaster. It does pack some real punch, too. It shoots the ice projectiles hard enough to shatter wine glasses. That’s enough to tell us you don’t want to be aiming this thing at your pals in a friendly match of Capture the Flag. Stick to paintballs, perhaps. Video after the break. Continue reading “Thermoelectric Blaster Flings Ice Projectiles” →

Building A Hydrogen-Powered Foam Dart Cannon

November 1, 2024 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

Nerf blasters are fun and all, but they’re limited by the fact they have to be safe for children to play with. [Flasutie] faced no such restrictions when building his giant 40 mm foam dart launcher, and it’s all the better for it.

This thing is sizeable—maybe two to four times bigger than your typical Nerf blaster. But that’s no surprise, given the size of the foam ammunition it fires. [Flasutie] shows us the construction process on how the 3D-printed blaster is assembled, covering everything from the barrel and body assembly to the chunky magazine. Loading each round into the chamber is a manual process, vaguely akin to a bolt-action mechanism, but simplified.

It’s the method of firing that really caught our eye, though. Each round has a cartridge and a foam projectile. Inside the cartridge is a quantity of flammable HHO gas generated, presumably, from water via electrolysis. The blaster itself provides power to a spark gap in the cartridge that ignites the gas, propelling the projectile through the barrel and out of the blaster.

We’ve seen plenty of Nerf blasters and similar builds around these parts, including some with a truly impressive rate of fire. Video after the break.

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Bonkers Nerf Blaster Sprays Balls Everywhere

March 14, 2024 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

Nerf blasters are fun toys, to be sure. However, they’re limited by factors like price and safety and what Hasbro thinks parents will put up with. Few caregivers would ever countenance a build like this one from [ItllProbablyWork].

It’s a blaster designed to fire 48 darts in a second or so, or a truly ludicrous 288 Nerf balls. Like so many rapid fire blaster designs, it’s based on a pair of rotating wheels which fling darts out at rapid speed. The trick to the rapid fire ability is the delivery of ammunition. In this case, the blaster has a rotating drum of 12 barrels, which can each be loaded with 4 darts or 24 balls. As the drum rotates into position, a trigger mechanism unlatches a spring which forces the contents of the barrel out through the wheels and on to the target.

It’s mostly pretty good with darts, but with balls, it tends to send them flying everywhere, including jamming a bunch into the blaster’s internals. It is very funny to watch, though.

We’ve seen some other great blaster builds recently, too. Video after the break.

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