Aug 7, 2015 | By Alec
As 3D printing is increasingly proving itself as an excellent tool for making fun props, it’s hardly surprising that we’ve been seeing quite a few 3D printed replicas of guns, like this Destiny video game tribute. But if you’re of the persuasion that even prop guns should be able to fired, you’ll love a recent creation by Swiss student Kevin Thomas, who has just shared designs for an absolutely fantastic automated Rubber Band Sentry Gun operated by joystick.
Kevin is a twenty-year-old multimedia electrician who is currently studying micro-technic and medical engineering in Bienne in Switzerland. And like many of us, enjoys building and designing fun and cool things. ‘Most of my knowledge I learned step-by-step by myself,’ he tells 3ders.org. ‘Since I was very little I have always created and built a lot of things. I started off with LEGOs and then moved on to a lot of spare parts that have been recycled from broken machines. Now with 3D printing I have found a new way to satisfy and express my creativity.’
And if anything, you could call this amazing Rubber Band Sentry Gun creative. Capable of firing up to 24 rubbers before reloading, this very cool and futuristic sentry gun has a firing range of about 5 meters and is very flexible with a 360 degree scope. It can also be upgraded to feature 30 or even more rubber bands, though that will obviously require scaling up all components. But most importantly: while it can be operated by hand with a joystick, this sentry gun can – like the name suggests – autonomously recognize and fire at targets. As you might have guessed, the original design for this sentry gun was inspired by Portal 2, though this third iteration has since moved on a bit.
But why build this, aside from sheer awesomeness? It’s used to combat a mice infestation or anything, as Kevin was simply inspired by the Automatic Rubber Band Blaster-32 he found on Thingiverse a while ago. While that isn’t automated, it did inspire the Swiss designer to build something similar.
The sentry gun in action!
To design this fantastic automated robotic creation, Kevin relied on Cubify Invent software, which came with his Cubify Cube 2gn 3D printer he purchased a few years ago. All in all, he spent about 3 days designing this third version of the Sentry Gun, which contains quite a few 3D printable parts – twelve to be precise. It also needed to incorporate quite a few electronics, as the entire machine runs on two servo motors – one micro servo 180° for the tilt (y-axis) and a normal one for the pan (x-axis), Kevin explains. The firing mechanism itself uses a use 360° servo-motor.
3D printing itself took place on Kevin’s brand new bq Witbox 3D printer, and all parts have been done in PLA filament. But perhaps the most pressing question is: how does it autonomously fire? Well, Kevin was fortunate enough that most of the programming work had already been done by the guys over at Project Sentry Gun, where all the code can be found to program a gun to fire at targets; all it needs is an Arduino Mega and a webcam. However, by adding a joystick you can obviously also play with this fantastic gun yourself. If you’re thinking about recreating this awesome sentry gun yourself and scaring the neighbor’s cat, you can find all the 3D printable files on Thingiverse here.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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