Have you ever seen a really bad action movie with Bruce Willis called The Jackal where he has that automated gun turret? That thing was awesome, but I bet he couldn’t control it with his iPhone like this Wi-Fi Coil Gun. That’s probably because iPhones weren’t invented yet (I don’t think), but we won’t argue semantics here. The point is this is a coil gun which was placed on a turret, a cool little device in and of itself, but it gets better. It uses remote targeting and shooting with just about any compatible iPod device you can think of. You could use an iPhone, iPod, Touch, or iPad. Not bad at all for a small group of student engineers for a project, right?
The video calls the gun by it’s other name, which I think sounds cooler, the “Gauss gun.” That’s right out of half the Science Fiction movies I’ve seen, but the 3 minute video goes a long way in showing us how the thing was built, and goes to prove that I could never ever build one of these things myself. The gun has a video camera attached to the wooden barrel. The barrel then sends it’s data through an “Arduino” which is routed over Wi-Fi to the Apple devices I mentioned earlier. Once it’s setup all you have to do is aim and shoot, just like Bruce Willis but with a slightly less cool looking gun. Now all I have to do now is find out what the hell an Arduino is. Am I supposed to understand that? Am I not geeky enough?
Judging by the paper bulls eye, the gun may have a long way to go before it manages to hit anything with some sort of accuracy, but that’s not really the point. As a school project this thing is awesome, and what it lacks in practical application it makes up for in being a gun that you can shoot with your iPhone. That’s enough for me! If you’re interested in other coil gun technology we’ve featured some here on Walyou before, like this Steampunk Coil Gun, which also was fully functional, if lacking in range as well.
Via: HacknMod
