Beer Shooting Dorm Fridge

January 1, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 20 Comments

blunt force traumomatic

When we first heard the parts list for this project, we weren’t too impressed. It has an iPhone connecting to an IObridge etc… But then we heard the next, and most important part, an air cannon and an assortment of beer. We were sold. As you can see in the video after the break, a fancy iPhone interface lets you select your beer, then dispense it into the cannon for delivery. The next step is to aim using a web cam mounted at the cannon and let ‘er rip! The beer is fired across the room and into your hands. We suspect that the amount of cranial injury, holes in the drywall, and shattered glass will greatly increase in frequency as the night goes on. Awesome.

Continue reading “Beer Shooting Dorm Fridge” →

Build A Confetti Cannon For Your Next Party

November 8, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

[Scott] built a confetti canon to spice up the party. It’s pneumatic and re-purposes a fire extinguisher as the air tank. He had a refillable extinguisher that used water instead of chemical retardant. After emptying the water and ensuring all of the pressure had been release he swapped the hose and nozzle for a sprinkler solenoid valve. Securing the extinguisher’s actuator lever with a pipe clamp holds the internal valve open, leaving the solenoid to control the pressure release. This way the canon can be fired electronically, or manually.

This type of solenoid valve is a popular choice with pneumatic canons. We suppose you could even adapt this for use as a T-shirt cannon.

[Thanks BoBeR182]

We Knew We Were Doomed When The T-shirt Cannon Bots Showed Up

October 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

The newest addition to the Skynet armada is this 10-barrel t-shirt cannon. It’s capable of storming the battlements at over twelve feet per second with a firing rate of three T-shirts per second (ooh, is that cotton?).

The members of Team 254, which is hosted by Bellarmine College Preparatory School, built the robot over the summer. This involved a full production cycle; planning, 3D modelling, acquiring the materials, and finishing the build. All of this is well documented in their build blog and for video, check out their media page.

We already know how to customize the T-shirts for use as ammo, now what this needs is some tank treads.

Hackaday Links: August 22, 2010

August 22, 2010 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

EL back-lit keyboard

A couple bucks worth of EL wire gives a nice green glow to [Mark Shasha’s] T400 Elite. Hopefully [Jeri Ellsworth] has some time to pull those how-to videos together so that we can make our own EL wire to replicate this hack.

Mini kaboom

This tiny cannon is right out of Night at the Museum. It works just like its much bigger brothers would; fill with powder, insert cannon ball, and light with a fuse. Both the introduction and the follow-up videos document the destruction of various objects using the diminutive weapon. [Thanks Thorsten]

Don’t close that browser

We use Google Chrome quite a bit because it tends to be more responsive when opening massive numbers of tabs while researching featured hacks. But there’s some things we don’t like about it. Lack of built-in PDF support under Ubuntu comes to mind, but a smaller thorn in our side is that closing the last tab will also close the browser window. [Ted Schaefer] got tired of the same thing so he wrote an extension called Last Tab Standing to trap that last browser tab, opening the default window instead of closing the browser.

Amiga demo winner

This 4K demo for the Amiga AGA is the top ranked submission from Breakpoint 2010. [Osgeld] tipped us off about this and made the point that although it’s four times the size of those 1K JavaScript demos, the Amiga code doesn’t get to take advantage a pre-existing framework like Java does enjoy the benefits of running inside of a browser . Is this doing more with less?

Transformers balloon sculptures

If you’re having trouble finding that art piece to fill up your dining room you should consider building transformers out of balloons. The sculpture above is a free-standing Optimus Prime but the artist has also turned out Megatron, Grimlock, and others. [Thanks W01F]

Arm Mounted Light Cannon; Villains Beware

July 18, 2010 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

In a hack worthy of the flick Kick Ass, [Chein] built this arm-mounted light weapon. The lamp in the palm of your hand has a ring of LEDs for a nice glowing effect, but the real story is the xenon bulb at its center. The flash capacitor and charge circuit from a disposable camera are used to step up the battery voltage to 330V for an intense and slightly blinding discharge. The charging is started when you press a button on the back of the hand harness, with the flash coming when one of your fingers touches a conveniently positioned trigger. Check it out after the break.

This non-lethal weapon makes for a nice alternative to the dangers involve in playing with fire.

Continue reading “Arm Mounted Light Cannon; Villains Beware” →

Open Source Artillery

December 23, 2009 by Jake W 24 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPm84nxa2dk]

Thanks to [Josh, Kyle, and Mike], it is now possible to wage (Nerf) war with an Arduino. The turret designed around it is capable of shooting 6 foam projectiles in close succession, between reloads. The faux weapon interfaces with a computer through the Arduino’s onboard serial link (via USB). Software on the PC sends commands to the Arduino, which then executes functions, such as panning, tilting, firing, and rotating the cylinder. The power for the firing itself comes from a 5 gal, 80 psi air compressor. The Java software on the host PC also does smarter things, like show streaming video from the turret’s webcam and even performs basic object tracking (with mixed success). All the code for building the brute is available on [Josh’s] website.

Dry Ice Cannon

August 11, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 19 Comments

[vimeo= http://vimeo.com/6034556%5D

[Alexander] sent in his entry into a “creativity contest” at his university. He and some friends put together this dry ice cannon. Take note of the creative mechanism they used to mix the water with the dry ice. A large amount of gas is expelled as soon as the two begin to meet. If the gas is supposed to escape through the same opening, it is difficult to get all the material through. They have added a second opening just for the exhaust during mixing. Great job guys. How about some downloadable plans.