The Mother of All Potato Cannons
(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the
author of several books including Backyard
Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe
and Flamethrowers.)
About a year or so ago, I worked on a TV pilot for Discovery Channel starring Christian. He is perhaps the most gifted mechanical artist I've ever met.
Ristow designed a machine gun potato cannon which was a true machine gun spud gun. It had a gravity fed magazine that fed spuds into the firing chamber. I've built a lot of spud guns in my time, mostly like those in Backyard Ballistics. This was a magnitude more powerful and complex. There were four high pressure air tanks that could shoot potatoes continually and at high velocity until the magazine was emptied. I dubbed it "the Quadra-tater."
The airtanks were massive. I calculated the muzzle velocity to be well in excess of 85 mph. The rate of fire depended on the speed with which you turned a crank. The crank controlled five pneumatic solenoid valves, one for the magazine loader and one for each of the air tanks.
It worked absolutely great. We could get 20 or potatoes in the magazine and could empty the thing in much less than a minute. For the finale, the Quadratater, along with a gatling gun that Dave Mathews built, destroyed a car.
more Quadra-Tator images on my blog at Notes From the Technology Underground
My friend Christian Ristow was at Maker Faire with his giant pneumatically powered sculpture called Hand of Man. It's great. It's a highly interactive piece in which one puts on a glove with sensors and controls a multi-ton pneumatic hand capable of picking up and crushing a refrigerator.
Photo - Scott Beale at Laughing Squid
About a year or so ago, I worked on a TV pilot for Discovery Channel starring Christian. He is perhaps the most gifted mechanical artist I've ever met.
Ristow designed a machine gun potato cannon which was a true machine gun spud gun. It had a gravity fed magazine that fed spuds into the firing chamber. I've built a lot of spud guns in my time, mostly like those in Backyard Ballistics. This was a magnitude more powerful and complex. There were four high pressure air tanks that could shoot potatoes continually and at high velocity until the magazine was emptied. I dubbed it "the Quadra-tater."
The airtanks were massive. I calculated the muzzle velocity to be well in excess of 85 mph. The rate of fire depended on the speed with which you turned a crank. The crank controlled five pneumatic solenoid valves, one for the magazine loader and one for each of the air tanks.
It worked absolutely great. We could get 20 or potatoes in the magazine and could empty the thing in much less than a minute. For the finale, the Quadratater, along with a gatling gun that Dave Mathews built, destroyed a car.
more Quadra-Tator images on my blog at Notes From the Technology Underground
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How is it against ZOMBIES??!
Was this at Coachella? I remember seeing something similar.
I'd imagine it'd be better against aircraft (flying zombies?).
in college some physics friends had a potato gun challenge
the losing team shot their gun 1/2 a mile and damaged some bricks on a dorm wall
the winning team shot their gun 1/2 a mile and completely disintegrated the bricks
I need a video of this! - both the hand crushing a fridge and the potato gun. I needs it I tell ya!
ahhhh...
Finally found them...
A weapon of mash destruction.
Was the show picked up for the discovery channel? I did 3D animation of those two guns for the pilot and would love to see how it all turned out.
Check out the videos from Sarcos corporation. The "Large Dextrous Arm" (lower left) is shown holding an anvil as easily as a beer mug! What's more, there's haptic force-feedback to the user! The user can feel the heft and weight of what he/she's holding. Just what you'd need if you're holding a sword, say.
http://www.sarcos.com/teleop_videos.html
Someone stole Optimal Optimus' hand! How on Earth will the Maximals win the Beast Wars now???
I guess I'm kind of a dick for thinking about how all those potatoes you shot our of your machine-gun potato cannon could have gone to, like, a homeless shelter or something, huh? Does my thinking this is a sinful waste of food make me a humorless jerk?
If so, guilty as charged.
@7 Nope, the show wasn't picked up. That's the heartbreak of working in television.
We did make a burrito firing gun on Make Television: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/maker_workshop_burrito_blaster.html
Klg19 - I would not support pointing this cannon towards a homeless shelter.
just need a grid of blades over the muzzle and and a large military surplus radar downrange. Not sure how to do the fish though.
@12
Awesome.
That hand is called a "waldo", kids. Heinlein dreamed it up in the story of the same name back in the 40's.
has anyone ever read mona lisa overdrive by w. gibson?
next thing you know this guy will be building something called the judge
When is this guy gonna get a guest shot on MythBusters?