Railgun

Loser777

1931 Posts

May 18 2010 04:42 GMT

Today, after setting up my project at the California State Science Fair (woot!), I browsed through the other (and very intimidating projects) in my division. I noticed one project, with a rather eye catching setup that was vaguely related to electromagnetism. Then, I glanced and the title, and my eyes focused on one word... railgun. I was both pleased and saddened at the same time -pleased that I saw something that I reminded me of a certain scientific railgun... but saddened that no one would understand me if I made a reference (I did).

Anyhow, interviews are tomorrrow and I have to get up at like 6am to get there on time. -.-; I guess this is a little bright spot in a deadful day ahead.

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Conserve Electricity and be Power Smart!

Megalisk

United States6095 Posts

May 18 2010 04:46 GMT

The only railgun I'm reminded of is the tau railgun from WH40k

User would like to state for the record that WH40k is an awful game/money waster in his opinion

EsX_Raptor

United States2801 Posts

May 18 2010 04:52 GMT

I don't want to get your hopes down but building a fairly advanced homemade rail gun will not only take getting a hold of a lot of strong capacitors (around 40), a bunch of batteries, some scrap metal, and a bit of engineering, but sadly it will not be even strong enough to shoot a pellet through paper.

Shengster

United States167 Posts

May 18 2010 05:03 GMT

If you increase the length of your railgun, you'll have greater speed. Try to get the best conducting material you can for your capacitors, that'll help as well.

KwarK

United States42879 Posts

May 18 2010 05:05 GMT

On May 18 2010 13:46 Megalisk wrote:
The only railgun I'm reminded of is the tau railgun from WH40k

User would like to state for the record that WH40k is an awful game/money waster in his opinion

I dunno. Every now and then when I go back home I get the urge to look through boxes of my stuff to see if I can find a few to paint. Maybe I'm just nostalgic but there was something strangely relaxing about painting a model in excessive detail.