2010 homemade water gun competition

[Ben]

Unfortunately, I have forgotten to choose a winner.

I'll choose one this weekend and post a news item.

[martianshark]

Seal should have entered his SCH. If I were running the contest, I would give it second place.

[SEAL]

Maybe I should have! Unfortunately, when I entered my APH, I didn't even know I was going to make an SCH. I guess it's too late now.

But I think MunkeyB deserves to win.

[zeda.beta]

Dang, forgot about the contest COMPLETELY. Oh well, I'll have one built by next year.

[Ben]

Unfortunately, due to an eye injury, I'm going to have to wait a few more days before posting the results.

I am fine and will recover fully in a few days.

[zeda.beta]

Good that you're okay, but do you mind me asking how you got injured?

[cantab]

Ben, get well soon!

zeda.beta, loving the sig quotes. I don't think the MythBusters have yet done Squirt Gun Eye Blowout. I'd love to see what kind of blaster they'd build. I reckon they'd make something that would like shoot 150 feet and was lethal at point-blank range. Or they'd just use a fire hose.

[martianshark]

That would be awesome. We should submit that myth.

[zeda.beta]

Just sent an email to them about it, hope that its one of the myths that they test.

[MunkeyB]

Ben, Hope you are okay. Get well soon.

We made some adjustments to the cannon this weekend and took some video of us firing it. Once I edit the video, I'll post it on here for you guys to check out.

~MB

[Ben]

I work in a lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. While working on Friday, a careless graduate student turned on a powerful UV light without checking to see if anyone was looking in that direction. I was looking in that direction and saw the light for about one to two seconds before I turned away.

There were no immediate effects, but a few hours later it was clear that my corneas were burned. The condition is called photokeratitis.

At the moment I have mostly recovered, but I'm going to wait a few more days so that I have fully recovered. There likely will not be any long term effects.

I'll post something this weekend.

[Specter]

ouch, feel better soon...

@the other guys, I believe mythbusters have tested that myth already, but im not 100% sure.

[zeda.beta]

I sifted through all of their season on the website, and found nothing about this myth! YAY, we can get it tested finally.

[Ben]

I finally had time to evaluate the two entries.

I didn't read all of your thread SEAL, but I think I got the gist of it. Let me know if I missed anything!

MunkeyB's entry

Name: Pirate Water Balloon Cannon
URL: http://forums.sscentral.org/52442-post13.html

Evaluation:
Idea and creativeness - The idea is a realistic cannon that launches water balloons with CO2. This is very creative! No one has done anything similar as far as I know.
Quality of build - It looks great! From a distance, if I couldn't see the gas line, I'd think it was a real cannon. I can't tell precisely what components it uses, but it appears to be all metal or at least painted plastic, which should be very adequate for this launcher.
Function - 50 balloons in one day with an average range of about 50 yards sounds nice.

Overall: Great work! I'm impressed. I'm sure you've had a lot of fun with this cannon.

SEAL's entry

Name: APH Concept
URL: http://forums.sscentral.org/52294-post46.html

Evaluation:
Idea and creativeness - The basic idea appears to be improvements to the APH design. A bike pump is used instead of a homemade pump. A plastic bottle is the reservoir. Foam is added on the handle. A support holds the pump on better. I think the ideas are sound, though, aside from the bike pump, they're not new as far as I know.
Quality of build - Looks like standard APH build quality (which is good) aside from one thing. PVC primer is necessary. And sandpaper is BAD for pipe fit. The pipe OD is specified with fairly close tolerances so that it fits well. Primer does more than clean the pipe. It also allows the PVC cement to penetrate further into the pipe. So, sandpaper is doubly bad for safety! I suggest that you scrap this gun for safety.
Function - The range could be better. The pump might be preventing you from getting high enough pressure as you seem to have noticed. Remember that force = pressure * area, so if the area is too big, the force of the pump will be higher for the same pressure. I think you also could work on your nozzle. Make sure you drilled the hole cleanly and experiment with straws.

Overall: Good effort here. You have some places to improve your design, and I'm sure you will.

And the winner is...

MunkeyB!

I think it might have been a little obvious as his entry was pretty clearly a brand new and very cool thing. I'll make a news item over the next few days about this.

Overall, thanks to those who participated. Next year I'd like to do a similar thing, and hopefully we'll see more interest. I'll also hopefully have more time.

[SEAL]

Congrats MunkeyB!

I guess it didn't matter that I didn't enter my SCH. There were only 2 entries anyway! Maybe there will be more next year.

By the way, as far as my APH goes,

The name is actually SEAL H1.

The foam part is not the handle, it's the shoulder stock. The support pipe is the handle.

I'm not so sure about the primer part. I learned about the sandpaper from my grandfather, who used it on all the pipes in his house. (He put a little primer on just so the inspectors wouldn't condemn his house or anything.) Nothing's happened yet, and his house has been around for like 10 years. Although, my blaster does use higher pressure. (I think...???) But nothing has happened to my blaster so far. Oh well, if my blaster ever explodes or whatever, I'll eat everything I said.

I used a drill press for the nozzle, so I'm pretty sure that's as clean as it can get. Experiment with straws? What do you mean by that?

Anyway, I'm quite happy with my range. I mean, isn't 50 to 55 feet about the maximum range that an APH can get? I've never heard of any getting higher range.