21 replies to this topic

[nerfturtle]

Today, I woke up at 2 in the afternoon, crawled out of bed, took a shower, then called some friends to see if I could do anything. No one was around, so I had the rest of the day to do whatever.
Thats where this comes in.

It is not just supposed to be a giant missile, but it is supposed to rain pieces of foam on opponents from a hole in the back.

However, if you just put them in and throw it, they will just come out in the first ten feet or so, not something that has use in a war.
So, here is what I did to compensate for that.

See that plug? it has a string coming out of the back, which then goes to one of your hands.
So it is supposed to fly a while, and then have the bach pulled off about mid-flight, and have the pieces of foam:

rain out one by one out of the back of the missile.
Here is a video of the plug coming out after a very short flight.

The only problem is that the foam does not come out of the back when the plug comes out. I have tried many different things including foam size, plug tightness, and missile weight.
Any ideas?
I would really like to get this thing working.

Edited by nerfturtle, 17 November 2007 - 09:34 PM.

[Carbon]

They're not going to come out in flight: you have an inertia problem. The rocket is already flying forward, and so is the payload. When the plug comes out the back, there's no force acting on the payload to make it stop moving forward...so it keeps going with the rocket. Now, if the payload was somehow connected to teh plug, so when the plug came out, a package was pulled out of the rocket....

[NerfGnome]

Maybe you should try different "raining" darts, like stefans. The ones you are using look too big.

[NerfMonkey]

Neat idea, but I hate the string pulling part.

Maybe rather than dumping the foam out of the rocket when it's in the air you should put a primitive plunger system in there to force the foam out the back when the head hits something (the head would be coated in foam to prevent people from getting injured). It wouldn't be as cool as having the foam pieces fly out up in the air but then you could hit the ground near whatever you want the foam to hit and it would fly upward; and if you used a lot of shotgun darts weighted with BBs or something you could fit a shitload in there to make sort of a cloud when they shot out.

I don't know, pulling a string just seems like an awful mechanism to me. If the right spring exists it would be nifty to put one in that would push against the plug, but not with enough force to shove it out of the rocket until it reaches its maximum height and the force keeping the spring partially compressed reverses when the rocket starts its descent and allows the spring to pop the plug out.

Again, it would be really difficult to find the right spring for that, but if the rocket shot fast enough (equating to more force keeping the spring partially compressed) and you had a weak enough spring and plug, you could probably make it work. Then you'd just adjust the angle at which you fire the rocket to make the foam shoot out over different areas. If the barrel went inside the rocket that would keep the plug in there and the spring compressed and make it possible to load it without it firing.

[aguineapig]

You could try putting a spring in the end of the pool noodle first, then put the foam pieces in and then the plug, that would push the foam out. But it would have to be just the right strength, otherwise the cork would pop before it could get more then 10-15 feet. It's seems like it'd be a little simpler then NM's plunger idea.

Edited by aguineapig, 17 November 2007 - 10:53 PM.

[nerfturtle]

I don't think the plunger idea would work, the missile is not traveling fast enough fro that to launch a dart any good distance. I actually tried using some different springs, but you are right, you would need a perfect spring to get it to work. I think I am going to go with Carbon's idea, having the foam pieces attatched in some way to the plug. I'll update this tommarow morning.

[Cannonball]

you could use a thin cloth/tissue/towel to pull the little pieces of foam out of the back end. 1, maybe even 2 corners of the cloth would be enough to be connected to the plug to pull out the darts in the rocket, yet allow them to fall when they are out of it.

[Ubermensch]

Did you purposefully weight the pieces of foam with only a screw? Maybe if you weighted them more they'd have more inertia and fly out of the missile more consistently.

[Carbon]

Did you purposefully weight the pieces of foam with only a screw? Maybe if you weighted them more they'd have more inertia and fly out of the missile more consistently.

That won't work. Or rather, it will give them more inertia, but that will make them less likely to fall out. Heavier darts will be in motion already (just like lighter ones) and will need an outside force to dislodge them. A spring system seems the most likely way for that to happen.

[Blasphemy]

You could have a long pin connected to the plug which fits loosely through the center of each dart. You'd have to pull a second time after you've already pulled them out to release the plug and pin from the darts.

[Flaming Hilt]

I have two ideas:

1) Connect the ribbon through your plug to a stopper in front of the darts. That way, when the plug comes out, so does the stopper, and the stopper pulls the darts out on its way.

2) Put some vents in the front of the missile leading through to the dart chamber. When the plug is pulled, air will move through the vents and (hopefully) push out the darts. In the mean time, however -- unless you had air holes in your plug -- the missile would move slower.

[nerfturtle]

Ok, so I tried Carbon's idea just right now.
Here is what the plug now looks like:

Here is what it looks like halfway into the missile.

I would have taken a video, but it is horrible quality, and you can't see what happens.
Bottom Line:
It worked, but not well enough to use in a war.
The missile can't be thrown very far without it being very unstable, making the plug not come out.
Darts coming down 15 feet in front of you isn't that great.
However, I am not giving up just yet. I am going to find something a little bit more areodynamic, that can be thrown very far while sill being stable, like a foam football.
If anyone here would also like to try this, it would be great to have someone to work with.

[angrscottishkid]

Why not build an air cannon to fire it out of? They only cost about $30 to make. I use one similar to this for paintball, they pack a pretty good punch.



http://rpgchronicles.blogspot.com/

[Twitch]

Not to hijack the thread...

I made something similar to this a few months ago, but used the arrows from a BBB. I carved a trench along the length of the arrow, and glued springs inside. (from my Maverick & Firefly AR's) after that, I filled the trench with either micro stefans, for just dart heads, then cut a small rectangle of plastic to make a "window" which was squeezed over the trench/darts. The "window" was glued to fishing line, which was then tied to the BBB. when the arrow was fired, and reached the end of the line, the window was pulled off, and the spring would launch the dart heads in a small spray, which would then rain down. (the arrow would of course be fired over the enemy's heads and whatever they were using as cover.) I know it's not immediately helpful, but figured it wouldn't hurt to share what I'd tried in the past.

[NerferKid]

Would the little parachutes that come with the plastic soldier men work?.. Like,the kind you throw up and bunch up in the air?
...
Let me try to find a link.

[Skitzo]

I made this a while ago.
Its does pretty much the same thing you are trying to do.
I've improved it since then and it works great.
I just find it a waste of darts in a full scale war.

Skitzo-

Edited by Skitzo, 18 November 2007 - 11:10 PM.

[nerfsharpie6]

They're not going to come out in flight: you have an inertia problem. The rocket is already flying forward, and so is the payload. When the plug comes out the back, there's no force acting on the payload to make it stop moving forward...so it keeps going with the rocket. Now, if the payload was somehow connected to teh plug, so when the plug came out, a package was pulled out of the rocket....

Hm... a small zip top bag would work for that. Put them in and roll it up, put it on the plug so when it ejects the bag would unfurl dropping your pay load like a cluster bomb raining on innocent people. But how man missles would you need to make it an effective delivery system in a war. You would need 5 to make a difference because well people could dodge them before they got hit. With 5 you would have lots of foamy death raining down on them making it less possible to dodge.

[frost vectron]

I built the plunger-based rocket over 5 years ago:

http://www.frostvect...et/nerf_rpg.htm

Don't mind the horrible website.

[lionhead333]

Maybe a specialized home made to fire it?
Think of a grappeling gun.
...................................................\
1========1-----------------o-------I
/_/ ............................................. /
The .'s are empty space.

Your pull string is attached to the gun, then you adjust the length, load, and fire farther than you've been throwing it.
Or a Titan.
When the missile reaches your chosen range, the string pulls itself out, scattering the darts.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I didn't realize this had been said.
See what happens when I'm tired?

Edited by lionhead333, 19 November 2007 - 07:00 AM.

[umdlancer]

Another possibility is an indirect fire deployment mechanism.

You would have to build a different missile with a hollow for holding your payload, and I haven't tried it out yet, but here's a sketch.

Edited by umdlancer, 20 November 2007 - 12:37 PM.

[Skitzo]

Just realized I didn't put the link in my other post.
Here it its. -----> LINK!

Skitzo-