Making of CoilOsapien – Robosapien Coil Gun

Remember the video we featured last week? Well the CoilOsapien (Robosapien Coil Gun) is done, look here for all of the details.

“When the servo is activated it turns the disc inside the housing, with each spin it will pick up one BB and drop it into the firing chamber. The coilgun will need to be on a slight angle whilst reloading to allow the BB to roll to the back of the chamber. The reload would function better if it could be setup behind the coil to drop the BB directly into position, this would also allow loading in any position. Due to the fact there was not enough room to mount it back there I went the easier less functional alternative.

The following list is what I used for the hack, there are many substitutes you could make here.

* At least one disposable camera with flash
* 4 x photo flash capacitors (I salvaged mine from 3 other disposable cameras)
* 0.4mm enameled copper wire
* 2 x Ball-point pens (just the casings)
* Electrical tape
* A small servo
* 2 x 5v regulators
* SPST relay (Higher current handling if possible)
* SPDT relay
* LED
* AA battery holder
* 2 x softdrink lids (plastic)
* laser module (any type will do)
* small magnet
* 2 x empty film canisters
* Hot glue (this was my best friend!)
* Hookup wire (some heavy duty, some light duty)”

Thanks Marcus.