One Piece, 3D Printed Crossbow

March 11, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 17 Comments

bow

Centuries ago, craftsmen and smiths of all sort spent hundreds of hours crafting a crossbow. From the fine craftsmanship that went into making the bow to the impeccable smithing a windlass requires, a lot of effort went into building a machine of war. Since [Chris] has a 3D printer, he figured he could do just as well as these long-dead craftsmen and fabricate a crossbow in under a day.

What’s really interesting about [Chris]’ crossbow is that it is only a single piece of plastic. The bow is integrated into the stock, and the trigger works by some creative CAD design that takes advantage of the bendability of plastic. The only thing required to shoot a bolt from this crossbow is a piece of string. That, and a few chopsticks.

He won’t be taking part in any sieges, but [Chris]’ weapon is more than capable of shooting a bolt across a room or launching a balsa wood airplane. You can see an example of this after the break.

Continue reading “One Piece, 3D Printed Crossbow” →

Prison Inmates: The World’s Least Admirable Hackers

August 4, 2011 by Mike Nathan 38 Comments

prison_makers_diy_radio_transmitter_bug

One thing that always amazes us is the ingenuity displayed by prison inmates, as demonstrated in the tools and weapons they create while under the watchful eye of the law. Unlike most people however, these individuals have nothing but time on their side, which lends to the wide range of implements they inevitably dream up.

[Marc Steinmetz] took some time to photograph a handful of contraband items which were confiscated in various prisons. They range from the relatively benign bed sheet ladder to more sophisticated items such as battery-powered shotguns constructed from iron bedposts. While weaponry and escape aids are the most common prison yard creations, he also came across a DIY toaster, a hidden radio receiver, and one of our favorites – the surveillance bug pictured above, which was used to listen in on guards’ conversations.

While the use of any of these items in a controlled prison environment is questionable at best, it’s still interesting to see what people can hack together with limited resources and a heck of a lot of time.

[via Neatorama via Environmental Graffiti]

Libyan Rebels Turn Toys Into Weapons Of War

June 15, 2011 by Mike Nathan 66 Comments

scrapyard_weaponry

They say all’s fair in love and war – trust us, you don’t have to tell these guys twice.

With the war in Libya raging on, the rebels have turned to anything and everything to help give them the upper hand. Engineers and engineering students have put aside their work and studies to become the architects of the Libyan revolution. In a school playground-cum-weapons facility people from all walks of life work together creating powerful weapons from scrap parts.

[Rajab], the group’s chief weapons engineer, used to drive trucks for a living. Now he is directing his fellow fighters on how best to re purpose scrap materials and recovered military weaponry into effective killing machines. As you can see in the video below, everything is fair game. Their creations range from pickup trucks fitted with recovered fighter jet machine guns, to a Power Wheels chassis that has been converted into a remote controlled machine gun turret.

It’s amazing the things that can be produced with some scrap materials and a bit of ingenuity.

Continue reading “Libyan Rebels Turn Toys Into Weapons Of War” →

Electromagnetic Aluminum Can Crushing

October 15, 2007 by Will O'Brien 15 Comments

This has been around for a while, but we never covered it – and it’s friggin’ awesome. [jesse] sent in this crusher, but I featured this one due to a sort of draconian copyright notice on the former. The latter also uses some easier to find, hackable parts. They’re both built on similar concepts – use a large bank of capacitors to store up the energy needed, and deliver it in one large pulse to a coil electromagnet. The resulting force lasts for a short time, but is enough to physically crush an aluminum can inward without touching it. Yet another one has some more dramatic examples of crushed cans.