Collaborate Disseminate
As anyone who’s spent Christmas morning trying to shake a quadcopter out of a tree can attest, controlling these fast moving RC vehicles can be tricky and require a bit …read more Continue reading A Drone for the Rest of Us
Modern firearms might seem far removed from the revolvers of the Old West, but conceptually, they still operate on the same principle: exploding gunpowder. But as anyone who has put …read more Continue reading Six Shooter Swaps Powder for Popped Capacitors
When we first saw [lonesoulsurfer’s] ray gun, we thought it looked oddly familiar. Sure, it looks like a vintage ray gun you might see in a dozen 1950-era movies or …read more Continue reading Halloween Build: Exquisite Ray Gun has Sound Effects
Remember the pistol controller for the original Atari 2600? No? Perhaps that’s because it never existed. But now that we’re living in the future, adding a pistol to the classic …read more Continue reading Adding a Laser Blaster to Classic Atari 2600 Games with Machine Vision
Over the last century, very little of the basic design of firearm cartridges has changed, but the mechanics of firearms themselves have undergone many upgrades. The evolution of triggers, safeties, magazines, and operating mechanisms is a fascinating field of study. Hands-on experience with these devices is rare for most people, …read more
Continue reading Learn About Historic Firearm Design With A 3D Printer
Like many people, [Mike] has a list of things he wants to do in life. One of them is “fire a gun with a switch,” and with a little help from some hacker friends, he knocked this item off last weekend.
For those wondering why the specificity of the item, the backstory will help explain. [Mike] has spinal muscular atrophy, a disease that was supposed to end his life shortly after it began. Thirty-seven years later, [Mike] is still ticking items off his list, but since he only has voluntary control of his right eyebrow, he faces challenges getting some …read more
Continue reading Shooting for the First Time with Help from a Raspberry Pi
Like many people, [Mike] has a list of things he wants to do in life. One of them is “fire a gun with a switch,” and with a little help from some hacker friends, he knocked this item off last weekend.
For those wondering why the specificity of the item, the backstory will help explain. [Mike] has spinal muscular atrophy, a disease that was supposed to end his life shortly after it began. Thirty-seven years later, [Mike] is still ticking items off his list, but since he only has voluntary control of his right eyebrow, he faces challenges getting some …read more
Continue reading Shooting for the First Time with Help from a Raspberry Pi
[Bob] wanted to build a pinball-drop-style resetting target that he could use while practicing with his pistol. His first idea was to make the targets sturdy enough for use with 9 mm ammunition, and he planned to use 1/2” thick steel for the targets and 11-gauge steel tubing for the frame. However, the targets weighed 50 pounds together and that was more weight than the pneumatic actuators could lift. He ended up using 1/4” steel and thereby halving weight. The downside was that [Bob] had to switch out the nine for a .22.
Controlling everything is a 555 circuit. When …read more
Video game props require a dedicated maker with a repertoire of skills to create. When those props are pulled from the Mass-Effect universe, a little more technological mastery is needed. Bringing those talents to bear, [Optimistic Geometry] has built a motorized, folding M-3 Predator Pistol!
The gun was modeled in Fusion 360 and 3D printed on an Ultimaker 2 at the MAKLab Glasgow. [Optimistic Geometry] felt constrained by the laws of our reality, so opted for the smaller firearm thinking it would be an appropriate entry-level challenge. I’m sure you can guess how that went.
There wound up being three …read more
A few months ago, we caught wind of someone doing something remarkable. [Clinton Westwood] built a pistol from plans he found on the Internet. You can find plans to build anything on the web, from houses to four-stroke engines to perpetual motion machines. Most of the time these plans are incomplete and many of these devices have never been built at all. [Clinton]’s pistol was one of these never-built designs. After months of work, he’s ready to call this project done, and managed to build an awesome rig to rifle the barrel.
Before [Clinton] set out to build this gun …read more
