If only they had Arduinos back then this thing could have an automatic score-keeping mechanism and play bells and appropriate squawks of dismay when a target is hit.
What?
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They would have just 3D printed it.
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A laser cutter would come in handy to.
(Seriously.)
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Too bad I donât have a 3d printer yet!
Lasercut plywood targets are perhaps the best option here. But 3d printing is a must-have for making the mechanical parts; they could be lasercut from flat stock too, but the motor mounts and so on are rather annoying to make this way. Laser cutters with affordable lasers can cut only annoyingly low thickness of non-foam materials.
For example a seat at the workshop table.
For such low power projectiles, I donât see problems even for the indoors. Just keep the cat away when the projectiles fly.
Idea: Attach the cans to strings, let them be raised back into position by pulling a common string. (Drill a hole through the bottom center of the can, then holes through the plank the cans are on. Pull a string through the can hole, make a knot so it stays in. Pull the other end through the plank hole. Tie together the strings under the plank, attach a common string. Cut the plank back side in a way that when the cans are pulled up, they self-righten.) Or use something similar to the bowling pin setting machines.
A small-bore rifle with a low-power ammo is not what Iâd call âhigh poweredâ. When I was a kid, we were taught playing with these, by the now-evil communists so theyâd get future soldiers for fighting the then-evil capitalists.
What else to say here?
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Lasers you say! Well, screw the BB gun. This target build just got kicked up a notch!
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Not that difficult. Use an infrared laser, a webcam, and equip the targets with solenoids to collapse them down.
IR lasers and their optical tracking are used in some professional military simulators. The scene is projected to a wall, using a conventional projector attached to a computer. A gun with pneumatic recoil simulator is used as a controller, the point where it is aimed is sensed via the laser-webcam combo. The rest is a suitable game engine and some rank-and-file code.
And thatâs from the era before Oculus Rift.
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They sort of make something like that now. Laserlyte has either their own trainer guns, or you can put a âbulletâ that shoots a laser when the gun âfiresâ. They have bullseye type targets so you can see where you hit, or this cans that tip over on a hit.
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The âguyâ? who wrote this article needs to get a life. Itâs was and still is a great project. When I was a kid in the 70âs I used to shoot my pellet gun for hours in the basement when I couldnât go outside to target shoot (mostly too much snow). I was shooting at a cardboard box filled with old phone books and catalogs, this moving target setup would have been much more fun but I used to love to shoot my pellet rifle in the basement but moved on to .22âs outside as soon as I could and far beyond soon after that.
People have to learn that guns will always be fun to shoot, they were from day one and will be until the end of time for kids of all ages.
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Shooting animal-shaped silhouettes with a BB gun leads to animal torture and psychopathy the same way reading comic books leads to satanism and ritual child sacrifice. It doesnât, except in the minds of the delusional. This is at least the third article from boingboing in as many weeks where the author goes on a tirade about the horrors of People Having Fun In An Unauthorized Manner. Iâm not sure who made the editorial decision that you guys were to be the new fun police, but itâs clearly not going over as planned.
Believe it or not, itâs possible to be a hippy-dippy boingboing-reading liberal and still enjoy shooting sports. Hell, itâs even possible to acknowledge that this country has a serious problem with gun violence that needs to be addressed with effective reforms, and still enjoy shooting sports. Just as there is a difference between a âhackerâ that cracks DRM to for educational purposes or to increase functionality and a âhackerâ that commands botnets or steals identies, there is a difference between a âshooterâ who fires at paper targets or metal animal silhouettes and a âshooterâ who fires indiscriminately into a crowded mall. There are more progressive firearms owners out here than you might think.
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you know what would go well with this? A chainsaw powered marble shooting gun
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> It was the late-1950s; almost a century since a U.S. President had caught a bullet,
âŚcough⌠President McKinley, assinated by a bullet in 1901âŚcoughâŚ
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Heck, Iâve shot bb guns in the basement as an adult.
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Maker Mayhem article pops up, a hail of comments shoot it down. Repeat. Howâs that for a fun game?
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Science says that mom was right âYouâll shoot your eye outâ
Childrenâs eye injuries from nonpowder guns on the rise â ScienceDaily
Recent Maker Mayhems are pretty much just trolling. Same for Real Stuff, now that I think of it. Itâs kind of a thing with Boing Boing.
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Is this the price one pays for a post that forgoes the now nearly obligatory BoingBoing Amazon Affiliates link? :-0
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Leaving this particular piece aside (I didnât think it was that terrible, just a little snarky), Iâd say about 80% of BoingBoing is people trying desperately to sit at the cool table. Most of that I read with a cursory eye, if at all. Fortunately, the other 20% is often awesome or at least genuinely interesting. Iâve learned about a number of really nifty things on BoingBoing, and if I have to slog through a few dozen posts making fun of people who are weird in the wrong ways, Iâll do it.
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This is the most fatuous condescending self-righteous bilious vomit of moral panic Iâve read in a long while. The author forgot to blame comic books, drugs, Satanic music, teen fashions and D&D. He should come to our next paintball night; that chip on his shoulder would make a great target 
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Well, he is from the peopleâs republic of Vermont! 
Iâm pretty sure he lives in a room with no windows (soon is bad after all), doesnât believe in immunization and hovers around his (poor) children sy that he can insert himself between the child and the ground in the event of a fallâŚ
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This article is from Popular Mechanics, March, 1954. It does specify as used for an air rifle; which, while being similar, is not the same as a BB gun, and at lowest power should be slightly weaker. Not all that dangerous for indoor target shooting, given a reasonable setup and responsible parenting. As others have stated, given the well-rounded nature of the skills required to make this, plus adding in gun safety lessons, itâs quite the excellent project!
Iâm guessing that the concept of something like this is just to mundanely mid-western for a hip, fun, party-dude like Matt Maranian.
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