MSRaynsford

Inspired by the 3D printed gauss gun on thingiverse I decided that it could easily be cut and done in ( svg here )

Just a simple crank tonight, had a busy day and nearly forgot that I hadn't even cut anything for today. I promise to do better with my spare weekend time.

This laser cut has been kicking around for some time so I thought it would be a good idea to get it to a functional state. It's not perfect so expect another revision in the future. Conventional ballistas use twisted rope as a power source at the base of each arm. I decided to use elastic bands, but when they twist they don't supply as much power (insert questionable physics). So I kept the bands and arms slightly off centre this way all the power comes from stretching the bands rather than twisting them. It seems to give a fairly good kick, launching that pencil 10 metres or so. Round the corners of the wood off though as my elastic bands rub and snap quick frequently. ( svg here )

While NortHACKton were over on Monday Steve decided he'd like to get a bokeh lense cover thingy cut. So we converted his files over to the approriate dxf format and cut them out, he then spent the rest of the evening fiddling with taking photos of things, see the results below and photos here .

NortHACKton came over for a visit yesterday and a quick tour of the laser. We ended up cutting a rubber stamp for use with the hackspace passports.

Completing the set and proving it can be done in card, a 6 leaf iris. ( svg here )

The next logical variation, this one took 2 attempts and I ended up padding the layers with 2 spacers to make it work ( svg here )