E-Bola

Bolas, or boleadoras, are throwing weapons used to trap / capture prey. Traditional bolas are made of weights attached to the ends of three connected sections of cord. When thrown, the weights will spin around the taut cords until the bola hits it's target. If the bola is thrown correctly the weights will have enough momentum to completely circle the target multiple times, wrapping / trapping it with the cords. (obligatory wikipedia link)

"E" is an abbreviation for electronic, it was very popular in the 90's before the whole "I" fad. It can still be spotted today lurking next to mail.

This project describes the process of building a bola that uses LEDs and batteries as the weights, and a short length of cord as the cord.

Step 1 Materials

Duct tape - What would we do without it?

Nine 10mm LEDs - Use whatever colors you like. I decided to use a single color for each section of cord.

Nine batteries - Standard 3v CR 2032 Throwie variety

Seven feet of cord - It should be strong, thin, and flexible.

Comments

[ahrshin]

this is fantastic!!!

[username252]

Couldn't the LEDs break from hitting them?

[M4industries]

No, they are solid plastic. The worst you could do would break the soldered joints.

[lucien237]

Ok saw a comment about the ebola virus and it's symptoms. *sigh* Cue the science segment. The ebola virus is a severe variety of hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, bleeding from ALL orifices, including the pores in the skin (severe cases), and in really severe cases your entrails begin to take on the consistency of thick ketchup. And let's not forget everyone's favorite symptom. Death. No cure, no treatment. Your only hope is to survive the disease running its full course of about two weeks or so after infection occurs. And round of applause for the folks who mentioned the virus and brought on my sudden bout of informative ocd. >_>

[_Scratch_]

EVERY orfice? .... ouch...

[lucien237]

EVERY orifice. If you have a hole in your body, it has the potential to bleed. That means your nostrils, anus, urethra, mouth, even your the pores you sweat from and your tear ducts. I would suggest simply not ever catching said virus. Fortunately, however, it's not that common. It's not widespread, and it's believed to be transmitted by contact with bodily fluids. Unfortunately, they don't know what the natural reservoir (the organisms that the virus usually live in without causing much harm) actually is, so they have no surefire way to tell you where you might bump into it.

[_Scratch_]

Good god....

[Eye Poker]

You think that's scary, it has a 90+% fatality rate. There is an airborne strain of Ebola amongst monkeys and lucky for us it's the only strain of simian ebola that we are immune to. It was brought into Virginia through an exotic pet dealer back in the 80's. If we hadn't have been immune it would have been like The Stand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reston_ebolavirus

[Blackie Ray]

Way to stay on topic guys :-)

[lucien237]

Read the wiki article you left the address for, and I didn't see it saying anything about that strain being airborne. Also, we're NOT immune to it, in 2009 they had a verified case of that strain passing from ape to pig, then pig to human. So it's POSSIBLE, just not likely. Also the mortality rate of Ebola isn't 90+%, it's 50-90% depending upon which strain/species of ebola you've contracted (humans are vulnerable to all but Reston, which can pass to humans through swine apparently), with some variance from your medical care during your illness. The 90% mortality rate comes from the Zaire strain, which was the first strain discovered. Regardless, it's a nasty piece of work considering that H1N1 and Avian flu and SARS all have gotten major press time even though the mortality rate of those illnesses is pitiable by comparison. If an airborne strain of Ebola did ever make a debut, civilization as we know it would grind to a halt as a plague more deadly than the Black Plague that ravaged Europe consumed the globe. Really the original propagators of the virus are bats. Or rather that's the current theory. Primates die when exposed so it can't thrive in us enough to survive as a species, and after testing 30,000 species of plants animals fish insects and reptiles, the best guess is bats. Bats nibble fruit, the fruit falls, stupid monkeys eat the fruit, become infected, then starving natives eat the stupid monkeys. Granted cooking should kill the virus, but you touch their bodily fluids when you skin and butcher them, thus providing a means for infection.

[_Scratch_]

lol, super-flus are bad, we don't want The Stand to come true....

[Valeil]

*applause*
You deserve a cookie(:

[flyingfox567]

wow, how lucien237 described it, it reminded me of the contagion movie i saw a couple months back...

[lucien237]

Yeah Ebola is one of those things that's already so scary people don't need to truss it up for movies. Well, maybe a little more gratuitous blood, but really, for being +75% water, so much of that's contained in cell membranes that we're more squishy and gelatinous than liquid. So injury tends to be more oozy than splashy.

[computer_guy]

Just saying but, how are you going to turn them off?

[Laserman595]

Hahaha

Thats the beauty of it.

[Marker1024]

great idea but how do you turn off the lights without dismantling the whole thing every time?

[sheetmetalalchemist]

You wouldn't think that something that was this easy to make could look so awesome. Well done sir!

[Potter5972]

amazing!!

[Saturn V]

I. Love. It.
This.  Is.  Awesome. 

[Ace_Pevensie]

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Its very awesome,i must make this one!

[ikeike40]

oh i thought it was going to be about the disease ebola

[J@50n]

 Look up Poi on the internet and then make 2 of these and have a blast,

Remember

POI

[RavingMadStudios]

Not to be confused with the traditional Hawaiian food made from mashed taro, which would probably not spin around your head nearly as well as the other kind. Also, the kind you spin probably taste better.

[geodez]

*Facepalm*

[geodez]

You can have a lot of fun making meteor hammers using the same basic idea.

[jcksparr0w]

Dude that is so awesome!

[cheeseboy043]

 this is so cool! what type of cord are u using?

[Slackerstephen44]

 insanely awesome

[armored bore]

I think I'll try this later tonight, though I think I'll try for a sturdier setup. I've never had much luck getting throwies to work reliably. :/

I wonder, though. Will 22 gauge copper wire or something similarly thin hold up to being spun around like that?

[skaterqwertyuiop]

 I was this and immediately thought "Ebola virus". But anyway, good instructable.

[spartan094]

Instead of the lame duck tape, could i solder the LED's for a better connection?

[Jodex]

Soldering directly to batteries is highly  not recommended. There is a chance that it could explode. Use batteryholder and solder on it. It's lot safer and handier, 'cause you can actually change the battery A LOT easier..

[bowmaster]

I want to see you solder to batteries. Spill acid on yourself and die.

[husker]

 You can solder to batteries.

[wierd idiot]

oi! I solder batteries all the time. All you need is a quick hand and a hot iron. Other wise they will over heat.

[kottoler ello]

im not sure i understand your question. theres a particular phrase that is completely and utterly illogical. im not sure its even correct English, in fact. you say "lame duck tape" i assume you mean "duct tape," in which case i challenge you to inform me of when, where, and how, if ever, duct tape has been lame. duct tape is the holiest of holy materials; its what keeps instructables up and running smoothly, and your plastering it with the adjective "lame," well, it makes me sad. in fact, if you had not redeemed yourself by suggesting instead to solder (the more elitist holy way to keep things together), i would be just plain angry with you.

[awz123]

Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

[toogers]

lame duct tape is known otherwise as packaging tape.....

[munchman]

actually, I would have preferred to know why they were making tape out of lame ducks.