launcher

30 Articles

Cookie Launcher Makes You Catch Your Own Snack

December 25, 2025 by 2 Comments

Holiday cookies are a joy, and to make things a bit more fun, [The Skjegg] created the Cookie Launcher. At the touch of a button, a door opens and the tin launches a cookie (and perhaps a few crumbs) skyward. Catching it is up to the operator, but since the tin can hold up to 40 cookies at once (39 in a magazine and 1 in the launcher), there’s enough to get some practice in.

The design is a real thing of beauty, from the rotary cookie holder to the ejector. Individual cookies are held in a pan-style magazine that rotates until a tasty disk is lined up with the ejector. The red separators aren’t just for show, either. The little inward protrusion on each one interacts with an optical sensor to ensure the system always knows when things are lined up.

The launcher design is pretty neat, too. There’s a platform that uses two smooth bolts as guides, and elastic bands to store energy. A motor cranks it downward, where it locks into place. The rotary magazine then turns to line up a cookie, which gravity feeds into the launcher by rolling down an incline. When a cookie is in place, a door in the lid opens and the launcher platform releases, sending the cookie skyward.

The original concept for the Cookie Launcher involved voice activation, but training the voice module to trigger on custom Norwegian commands wasn’t very reliable. Luckily, a button is far more obedient. It may be a bit less magical to use, but in our opinion the physicality of a button push meshes perfectly well with the requirement to catch your own cookie.

You can get a good look at the operation and a detailed tour of the insides in the video, embedded below. Thanks to [Rohit] for sending in the tip!

If airborne cookies aren’t your bag, check out one a very different approach to hands-free cookie dispensing.

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BeyBlades Made Ever More Dangerous With 3D Printing

June 28, 2025 by 11 Comments

If you’re unfamiliar with Beyblades, they’re a simple toy. They consist of spinning tops, which are designed to “fight” in arenas by knocking each other around. While the off-the-shelf models are deemed safe enough for children to play with, [Jon Bringus] decided to take the danger level up a few notches with some custom launchers of his own design.

[Jon]’s project started with some of the early metal Beyblades, which are traditionally launched with a small geared ripcord device. He soon realized he could up the action by doing one simple thing—spinning the tops far faster than the manufacturer ever intended. More rotational speed equals more kinetic energy equals more legal liability fun, or so the equation goes.

The design for [Jon’s] “WMD Launcher” is straightforward enough—he combined a lawnmower pull starter with a 12:1 geartrain to turn the Beyblades at truly ludicrous speeds. It’s basic engineering — a couple of 3D-printed gears do the job — but the results are hilarious. The tops begin to emit loud noises as they turn in combat, and some move so fast and erratically that they won’t even stay inside the arena. Protective eyewear is virtually mandatory. Files are on Printables for those eager to build one at home.

Yes, ruining a game of Beyblades is as simple as building an irresponsibly fast launcher. You needn’t even use some fancy brushless motor to hurt yourself — just a little gearing is enough to cause havoc. We’ve featured similar work on this topic before, too. Video after the break.

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Launching Model Airplanes With A Custom Linear Induction Motor

September 5, 2024 by 20 Comments

Launching things with electromagnetism is pretty fun, with linear induction motors being a popular design that finds use from everywhere in hobby designs like [Tom Stanton]’s to the electromagnetic launchers on new US and Chinese aircraft carriers. Although the exact design details differ, they use magnetic attraction and repulsion to create a linear motion on the propulsive element, like the sled in [Tom]’s design. Much like the electromagnetic catapults on a Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, electrical power is applied to rapidly move the sled through the channel, akin to a steam piston with a steam catapult.

Model airplane sparking its way through the launcher’s channel. (Credit: Tom Stanton, YouTube)

For [Tom]’s design, permanent magnets are used along both sides of the channel in an alternating north/south pole fashion, with the sled using a single wound coil that uses brushes to contact metal rails along both sides of the channel. Alternating current is then applied to this system, causing the coil to become an electromagnet and propel itself along the channel.

An important consideration here is the number of turns of wire on the sled’s coil, as this controls the current being passed, which is around 90 A for 100 turns. Even so, the fastest sled design only reached a speed of 44 mph (~71 km/h), which is 4 mph faster than [Tom]’s previous design that used coils alongside the channels and a sled featuring a permanent magnet.

One way to increase the speed is to use more coils on the sled, with a two-coil model launching a light-weight model airplane to 10.2 m/s, which is not only a pretty cool way to launch an airplane, but also gives you a sense of appreciation for the engineering challenges involved in making an electromagnetic catapult system work for life-sized airplanes as they’re yeeted off an aircraft carrier and preferably not straight into the drink.

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A badminton shuttle launcher loaded with shuttles

Hackaday Prize 2023: Automated Shuttle Launcher Enables Solo Badminton Practice

September 29, 2023 by 7 Comments

If you want to get better at your favorite sport, there’s really no substitute to putting in more training hours. For solo activities like running or cycling that’s simple enough: the only limit to your training time is your own endurance. But if you’re into games that require a partner, their availability is another limiting factor. So what’s a badminton enthusiast like [Peter Sinclair] to do, when they don’t have a club nearby? Build a badminton training robot, of course.

Automatic shuttlecock launchers are available commercially, but [Peter] found them very expensive and difficult to use. So he set himself a target to design a 3D-printable, low-cost, safe machine that would still be of real use in badminton training. After studying an apparently defunct open-source shuttle launcher called Baddy, he came up with the basic design: a vertical shuttle magazine, a loading mechanism to extract one shuttle at a time and position it for launch, and two wheels spinning at high speed to launch the shuttle forward. Video after the break. Continue reading “Hackaday Prize 2023: Automated Shuttle Launcher Enables Solo Badminton Practice” →

Golf Club Shooter Is Your Ballistic Friend On The Green

May 25, 2022 by 17 Comments

Golf is a sport that has always enjoyed a good gadget or eight. Whether it’s something to measure the wind, or the latest putter guaranteed to save your game, golf enthusiasts have always flocked to such toys. [Nick O’Hara] has something that might just be a little too exciting for the golf set, though, in the form of his golf club launcher.

The golf club launcher essentially takes the role of a normal golf bag, with a rotating magazine containing all the necessary clubs for a day out on the green. The magazine is rotated into position on request, and the required club is launched out towards the player thanks to a pneumatic cylinder fired at 120 psi. A compressor in the base keeps the system charged with air for repeated launches.

The launcher even has a voice assistant built in. Telling the caddy the distance to the hole, and variables like wind and elevation, allows the device to select the right club for the conditions before blasting it towards the player.

It’s a device that easily puts a smile on the face every time it launches a club. We’ve seen some other great golf hacks before, too. Video after the break.

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Twisted Tea Launcher Refreshes At 104 MPH

February 4, 2021 by 60 Comments

A few weeks ago, a video went viral on social media that depicted a rather unsavory individual receiving what could be described as a “percussive reminder” of social norms courtesy of a bystander armed with a can of Twisted Tea. The video served as inspiration for many a meme, but perhaps none more technically intricate than this air cannon that launches 24 ounces of hard iced tea at better than 100 miles per hour built by [Greg Bejtlich].

It’s all fun and games until somebody brings out the weaponized bead seater.

Technically we’re looking at two different hacks here. The first is the pneumatic launcher put together using a low-cost eBay tire bead seater. These tools are designed to unleash a large volume of air into a tire so it can be properly seated onto the rim, but it doesn’t take much more than a few pieces of PVC pipe from the hardware store to turn it into an impromptu mortar. It’s even got a convenient trigger and a handle to help control the recoil. Though as you can see in the video after the break, it still ends up being a bit too energetic for [Greg] to keep a grip on.

For the projectiles, [Greg] has 3D printed a nose cone and tail fin that snap onto the 24 oz cans in hopes of making them more aerodynamically stable. The slow motion video seems to indicate they aren’t terribly effective, but they certainly look impressive. Spring-loaded control surfaces that deploy after the can leaves the muzzle could be the answer, though at some point you have to ask yourself how far you’re willing to go for an Internet meme.

It probably goes without saying that you definitely shouldn’t try firing cans of alcoholic iced tea off in your backyard. But the launcher itself might be useful for lofting antennas or hurling the occasional potato.

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Robust Water-Rocket Launcher Gets The Engineering Just Right

November 5, 2020 by 7 Comments

Normally when we run across a project that claims to be overengineered, we admit that we get a little excited. Such projects always hold the potential for entertainingly over-the-top designs, materials, and methods. In this case, though, we’ll respectfully disagree with [Zach Hipps] assessment of his remote-controlled soda bottle rocket launcher as “overengineered”. To us, it seems just right.

That’s not to take away from anything accomplished with this build. Indeed, we’re mighty impressed by the completeness of the build, which was intended to create a station for charging and launching air-powered water rockets. The process started with a prototype, built mainly from 3D-printed parts but with a fair selection of workshop scraps to hold it together. This allowed [Zach] to test the geometry of the parts, operation of the mechanism, and how it interfaced with the flange on the necks of 2-liter soda bottles.

Honestly, the prototype was pretty good by itself and is probably where many of us would have stopped, but [Zach] kept going. He turned most of the printed parts into machined aluminum and Delrin, making for a very robust pneumatically operated stand. We’ve got to say the force with which the jaws close around the bottle flange is a bit scary — looks like it could easily clip off a wayward finger. But if he manages to avoid that fate, such a hearty rig should keep [Zach] flying for a long time. Perhaps it could even launch a two-stage water rocket?

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