nerf gun

14 Articles

Giant working NERF gun runs on Arduino.

Giant Working NERF Gun Runs On Tiny Arduino

October 1, 2021 by 8 Comments

Well, here it is: a shoe-in for the new world’s largest NERF gun. (Video, embedded below.) The Guinness people haven’t shown up yet to award [Michael Pick], but at 12.5 feet, this baby is over twice as long as the current record holder, which belongs to former NASA mechanical engineer Mark Rober and his now-puny six-foot six-shooter.

We have to wonder if it is technically bigger than the six-shooter, because they seem to be roughly the same scale, except that [Michael] chose a much bigger model to start from. The main body is made from wood, and there are a ton of 3D-printed details that make it look fantastically accurate. The whole thing weighs over 200 pounds and takes at least two people to move it around. We especially love the DIY darts that [Michael] came up with, which are made from a PVC tube inside a section of pool noodle, topped off with a 3D printed piece for that distinctive orange cap.

Propelling those darts at around 50 MPH is a 3,000 PSI air tank connected to an Arduino Pro Mini that controls the trigger and the air valves. While [Michael] hasn’t run the thing quite that high, it does plenty of damage in the neighborhood of 40-80 PSI. As you’ll see in the video after the break, this is quite the ranged weapon. Watch it blow a hole clean through a sheet of drywall and much more.

Want to build something with a bit more stealth? Make it death from above with a NERF quadcopter.

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Get Some Close Air Support With A Nerf Drone

July 26, 2021 by 12 Comments

Working from home has the major advantage of spending more time with loved ones, but it all that time can sometimes lead to friction. [Cory] found that Nerf battles with his kids is an effective way to blow off some steam, but felt he was getting a bit too much exercise in the process. Instead, he equipped an FPV quadcopter with a 3D printed Nerf gun to take his place.

Since manually reloading the Nerf gun after every shot wasn’t an option, he needed to create an autoloader. The darts are propelled by a pair of brushless drone motors mounted side-by-side, with just enough space for a dart the squeeze between. The motors are allowed to spin up, and then a dart is loaded servo-operated plunger, out of an off-the-shelf Nerf magazine. The motors ESCs and servo is controlled by an Arduino Nano, which receives the fire command from one of the spare outputs on the drone’s flight controller. To nerf gear is easily removable from the drone, so [Cory] to also fly the drone on more peaceful missions. See the video of one of the battles after the break. [Cory] might need to find an alternative control location to prevent himself being used as cover by his adversaries.

Nerf guns are a fun and harmless way to live out your sci-fi warfare fantasies, especially with the technology we have available these days. From FPV sentry guns to auto-aiming rifles, and heavy artillery, anything is possible.

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Locating Targets With Charm Courtesy Of A Life Size Portal Turret

August 12, 2019 by 6 Comments

What better way to count down the last 7 weeks to a big hacker camp like SHA2017 than by embarking on a last-minute, frantic build? That was [Yvo]’s thought when he decided to make a life-sized version of the adorably lethal turrets from the Valve’s Portal video games. Since that build made it to the finish line back then with not all features added, he finished it up for the CCC camp 2019 event, including the ability to close, open, target and shoot Nerf darts.

Originally based on the miniature 2014 turret (covered on Hackaday as well), [Yvo] details this new project in a first and second work log, along with a detailed explanation of how it all goes together and works. While the 2017 version took a mere 50 days to put together, the whole project took about 300 hours of 3D printing. It also comes with four Nerf guns which use flywheels to launch the darts.  The wheels are powered using quadcopter outrunner motors that spin at 25,000 RPM. The theoretical speed of a launched dart is over 100km/h, with 18 darts per gun and a fire rate of 2 darts per second.

The basic movement control for the system is handled by an Arduino Mega, while the talking and vision aspects are taken care of by a Raspberry Pi 3+, which ultimately also makes the decisions about how to move the system. As one can see in the video after the link, the system seems to work pretty well, with a negligible number of fatalities among company employees.

Though decidedly not a project for the inexperienced tinkerer, [Yvo] has made all of the design files available along with the software. We’re still dubious about the claims about the promised cake for completing one of these turrets, however.

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This Nerf Gun Is Terrifyingly Huge

July 11, 2019 by 10 Comments

Gatling guns were an early attempt at creating a rapid-firing weapon, and were popular amongst armies in the 19th century. Today, the basic design remains in use as a heavy weapon for putting many rounds downrange very quickly. [Ivan Miranda] decided that the Nerf world was missing a piece of the action, and got started on his own design (Youtube link, embedded below).

As per most [Ivan] builds, this one is a glorious pile of 3D printed parts turned into something functional and fun. It’s an ingenious design that’s more a Gatling in spirit than reality as it lacks the multiple barrels of the original, and it uses smart ducting to allow a single electric fan to both fire the foam Nerf balls as well as suck them in to reload the next shot. In testing, it achieved a muzzle velocity of 60 mph, firing at a rate of approximately 10 rounds/second. The presentation is great too, with plenty of cable wrap, meaty switches, and glowing lights to add to the aesthetic. There are even a couple of bright LED lamps on the front to help dazzle your targets into submission.

Once again, [Ivan]’s work is a great example of what is achievable with a 3D printer and smart design. His water jet drive ain’t bad, either. Video after the break.

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Spellcasting Gun Uses POV Display, Not Magic

May 29, 2018 by 25 Comments

Persistence of Vision, or POV, displays are ever popular around these parts. Spin a few LEDs and you can make images appear in almost-thin air – just don’t stick your finger in the way. [FriskP] found a great application for this hardware – creating an anime-styled spellcasting gun.

The basic gun is built around a Nerf blaster, which is common in a lot of this type of steampunk and anime build. A Phantom3D POV display is then bolted on to the front along with some 3D printed components for style. The ensemble is then painted in a suitably awesome fashion.

We’re not sure on the software used, but [FriskP] has the gun displaying some amazing spell-type graphics that appear to hover in the air when the user pulls the trigger. The artwork is stunning, showing off some of the best graphics we’ve seen in the POV arena.

Overall, it’s a highly aesthetically pleasing build that any cosplayer would be more than proud to wield. It relies on the builder’s strong finishing and integration abilities more than raw electronic skill, but the end result is truly impressive.

We’ve seen plenty of POV displays around here before – you can get started with something as simply as a PC fan! Video after the break.

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Nerf Gun Ammo Counter And Range Finder

September 2, 2017 by 18 Comments

The proliferation of breakout boards that the DIY electronics movement has allowed has been staggering. Buy a few different boards, wire them together to a microcontroller or credit-card computer (both on their own breakout board) and write a bit of code, and you can create some really interesting things. Take Reddit user [Lord_of_Bone]’s Nerf Gun ammo counter and range finder, for example, a great example of having a great idea and looking around for the ways to implement it.

For the range finder, [Lord_of_Bone] looked to an ultrasonic rangefinder. For the ammo counter, [Lord_of_Bone] chose a proximity sensor. To run everything, the Raspberry Pi Zero was used and the visuals were supplied by a Rainbow Hat. The range finder is self-explanatory. The proximity sensor is located at the end of the gun’s muzzle and when it detects a Nerf dart passing by it reduces the ammo count by one. Blu-tack is used to hold everything in place, but [Lord_of_Bone] plans to use Sugru when he’s past the prototype stage.

The one problem [Lord_of_Bone] has with the build is that there’s no way to tell how many Nerf bullets are in the magazine. Currently the wielder must push a button when reloading to reset the count to a preset amount. We’re sure that [Lord_of_Bone] would appreciate any suggestions the Hack-A-Day crowd could offer.

[Lord_of_Bone] gives a full bill of materials, Python code, a lot of pictures and step-by-step instructions so that you, too, can determine how far away your target is, and whether or not you have enough ammo to hit them. We have quite a few Nerf mods on the site, and [Lord_of_Bone] could take a look at this article about how to keep track of your Nerf ammo, and here’s a different method of determining if a Nerf dart has been fired (and measuring its speed.)

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Remote Controlled Nerf Bomb

August 24, 2017 by 10 Comments

There was a third-party multiplayer upgrade pack for one of the Quake games back in the ’90s that included a whole slew of non-standard weapons. Among them one of the most memorable was a gravity well, that when thrown into the middle of a crowded room full of warring players would suck them into a vortex. Assuming its user had made it to safety in time, they would then be left the victor. The hyper-violent make-believe world of a first-person shooter is probably best left in a Pentium server from the ’90s, with few direct parallels in the real world. Maybe laser tag, or Nerf battles, are the closest you’ll get.

If you are a Nerf enthusiast, then you’ll appreciate [Giaco Whatever]’s CO2-powered remote-control Nerf bomb as an analogue of that Quake gravity well. It fires twelve darts at the press of a button on an infra-red remote control. The firing tubes sit in a nicely machined manifold connected via a solenoid valve to a little CO2 gas bottle. In the hectic world of a Nerf war it is slid out into the field of combat, its operator takes cover, and the other participants are showered in foam darts. There are probably kids who would sell their grandparents to own this device.

The build is detailed in the video below the break, along with a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek movie segment demonstrating it in action.

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