Super Soaker Central

What: A contest to make the most innovative water launching device including but not limited to water guns and water balloon launchers. Launching in containers more rigid than balloons is forbidden. The water launchers do not have to be intended for use in water wars.

Deadline: August 31th, midnight EST

Criteria: Below are some things to keep in mind when designing. I will judge based roughly on what is listed below.

• Idea and creativeness - New ideas or creative approaches to old ideas are most desirable. Note that doing an old idea particularly well may require very creative approaches.
• Quality of build - Is the device durable? Is it attractive?
• Function - Does the device do what it claims?

Prizes: There are no prizes aside from the glory of winning the contest.

I will update this thread until the criteria and other information is to my satisfaction.

Good luck.

Yay! The contest is out! I'm probably going to do this. I have an idea...

Ben wrote:Launching in containers more rigid than balloons is forbidden.

For the sake of clarification - are sponges allowed?

That was my idea. Please don't steal it...

Sponges are creative, and have been mentioned before, but their safety depends on what's done with them. It might be hard to create something useful and safe with them, but if you do, that's awesome and I hope Ben chooses it as the winner!

Also, I hope that at the very least, the prize is a mention on the front page.

Anyway, how do we apply?

My idea was actually to use water balls, but songes are pretty close to that.

I'd consider sponges to be more rigid than water balloons and they definitely serve as a container. Water filled "paintballs" (gelatin) would probably be a better idea though I'm not sure if paintballs are more or less rigid than balloons; they seem to be more

Other possibilities include better water balloon sabots, shells, warheads, etc. I'd love to see a sabot that can carry several balloons and dump them all at nearly the same time, kind of like the mortars from Gears of War 2. It's unfortunate that rate of fire remains a considerable problem.

I don't see anything wrong with going old fashioned and simply trying to make a more practical CPH or APH. APH's don't have to be limited to the XP-style design; there are at least two ways to seperate the air and water though only one (the piston) is commonly used. (The other being similar to the XPS mod; using thin balloons) A creative and effective approach to the age old problem of the ergonomic water blaster should, IMO, score well for this contest.

At this point I have doubts if I can participate. I have a lot of upkeep on water guns to do and have other things off to the side. I'll probably go into a two-year cycle as far as water weapon development goes so this year will be off. In the rare chance I'm able to build something new this summer, I'll have to see what I can do.

Sponges are okay.

I'll create a separate forum area especially for contest entries. Remind me if I don't do this in the next week or so.

I have an idea... (sneaks off to garage)
I have no idea if I'll be able to do it though, and it wouldn't be much use in a water war.

EDIT: just read Ben's first post. That's ok then.

Given the lack of entries so far, I've extended the due date to August 31st. PM me if you have a water gun for the contest.

so do we pm you to apply?

I should have made that more clear.

You can either post the thread in the homemade water gun section if you don't mind making it public or PM me that you have an entry that you want to keep private until the end of the contest.

For your consideration me crew and I would like to submit our Pirate Water Balloon Cannon for the contest





The Cannon is 54" long and 6 1/2" in diameter with a 3" firing barrel. The carriage is 36" long and roughly 21 inches high.

It uses CO2 as a propellant and has a 20 lb tank that sits in the carriage. We fired over 50 cannon balls the first day and barely went thru any CO2.

There is a tethered sabot that would fly about 2 feet from the cannon before falling to the deck to be reset and fired again.

Using roughly 60 psi we were averaging a range of around 50 yards. But it was difficult to calculate 1) because we were constantly moving and 2) because we were on water we couldn't measure the distance with any sort of measuring tape..

We humbly request this cannon be accepted into your contest and thank cantab for telling us about the contest.

~MB and Crew

I'm not going to be able to enter the contest (And no, it's not because of MB's entry ). Maybe next year.

My blaster is not that innovative, but what the heck, I'll enter it. Look for a thread entitled "APH Concept" in the homemade section. That's mine.