Nerf Just Got Serious

[Sionnach Glic]

A Heat-Seeking, Automated Nerf Sentry Gun

Nerf guns these days are very scary. They have reloadable magazines and fire automatically and look like they could provide a suitable defense during an alien invasion. But how to render one even scarier? Make it heat-seeking. Video, please:

That terrifying toy took Grand Prize at the MAKE/Design News Gadget Freak Design Contest, netting its creator, Rick Prescott, a cool grand and a six-month storefront at Maker's Market.

Prescott paired a Nerf Vulcan machinge gun with some Devantech TPA81 thermo sensors and a ATmega168 microcontroller, and he says he has "grand plans to deploy the infrared seeking sentinel facing the entrance of my work cubical in order to speed interaction with less desirable visitors."

That's fine, but Nerf guns are first and foremost kids toys. Can you imagine anything more traumatizing for a youngster than a robotic Nerf gun that won't stop shooting them. Well, whatever! A well deserved first prize for you, Mr. Prescott!

I want one.

[Tyyr]

....Awesome

[Lt. Staplic]

I want one for the Nerf War next month

[Mikey]

"More traumatic?" Please! Kids' wargames, even way back when I was a kid, followed the same patterns of escalation of tech as real-world warfare. My opponent got a water balloon, I got a hose, etc. The only trauma involved is when the kid who gets targetted by this thing can't get his parents to the store fast enough to buy one of his own.

[Mark]

Hmm....I wonder if I could soak and freeze those nerf darts for greater impact? 8)

[Lighthawk]

That is some many degrees of awesome

Hmm....I wonder if I could soak and freeze those nerf darts for greater impact? 8)

If you really want to get serious with the nerf darts you stick a needle through the end and dip it in whichever chemical compound gives you the results you desire.

[Mark]

Oooh....that is a really great idea.

[Mikey]

That is some many degrees of awesome

Hmm....I wonder if I could soak and freeze those nerf darts for greater impact? 8)

If you really want to get serious with the nerf darts you stick a needle through the end and dip it in whichever chemical compound gives you the results you desire.

Dude, we're talking about Nerf... an identifier of innocent childhood fun for decades. I'm a bit disturbed that you either thought of that or know someone who did.

[Lighthawk]

Oh come on, I can't be the only guy here who thought of ways to turn his toys into devices of pain and/or warfare. Nerf was just one of the easier ones. So were those battletech toys back in the 90s. They used some seriously powerful springs in the mech's missile launchers, and most of the missiles had soft rubber tips that you could wedge an exacto knife blade into. I could stick one of those into an cardboard box from 20+ feet.

[Mark]

And I'm just a vengeful bastard 8)

[stitch626]

Well, you need a cheap way to deal with zombies as a kid, right?

[Lighthawk]

Well, you need a cheap way to deal with zombies as a kid, right?

That would have been what the super soaker flame thrower was for, if I'd ever had the nerve to actually build it.

[Tsukiyumi]

Well, you need a cheap way to deal with zombies as a kid, right?

That would have been what the super soaker flame thrower was for, if I'd ever had the nerve to actually build it.

I had the disturbing but obvious realization that the super soaker had no control valve; the fire would simply spread back into the reservoir and explode...

Or you could put ammonia in it.

[Coalition]

That would have been what the super soaker flame thrower was for, if I'd ever had the nerve to actually build it.

I'm trying to remember the story, where one kid wanted to ride his big wheel tricycle around the block, but the local kids wouldn't let him.

So he rigged up two squirt guns, attached copper nozzles to them, filled them with salt water, and attached the copper nozzles to the twin leads of a cattle prod. He turned it on when he got close, and when the local kids showed up, he began squirting. The copper conducted the cattle prod tips to the salt, and until the salt water streams broke into droplets, they would conduct the cattle prod current.

After the local kids were all lying on the ground screaming, he rode home and hid.

[Tsukiyumi]

Smart kid.