When I was a kid, we made these out of used 35mm photo film canisters. Since film canisters have become quite scarce these days, this is an updated version that uses a piece of PVC instead.
You can discreetly turn many small items into high-velocity projectiles with this thing, like pencil erasers, airsoft BBs, and spit-soaked wads of paper.
Go ahead and make a few, and let me know what you think!
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Signing UpStep 1: Materials
- 1 inch of either 1" or 1 1/4" diameter PVC (I used 1 1/4")
- A party balloon
- Some tape (I used electrical tape)










































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i used to make very powerful and small slingshots but they are all so hard to load, because they use those thick red rubber bands and it shoots sticks and pencils.
They shot small plastic pellets. similar to beans from a bean-bag in size only hard.
Whilst on school camp in Kings Creek, Central Australia (basically the middle of nowhere) I was accidentally shot in the eye and had to flown to the nearest hospital (some 200kms away) on the Royal Flying Doctors Service.
The pellet missed my pupil by mere millimetres and I narrowly missed being blinded. Whilst I know that anything on Instructables comes with an unspoken 'at your own risk' policy, I am wondering if there need be a parental style warning with many of the projects herein.....?
8O
Great instructible by the way. I, for one, have never seen this before and love the idea. We have a ton of film canisters around the house, but no balloons! rrgh
In fact, here's a similarly functioning item right here.
As a prank, you could fill it with a liquid (top open, of course) and, if your physics was correct, watch it spray its target.
The condoms were great, because you could stretch the HECK out of them, they were perfectly symmetrical, and they had the "reservoir" tip on them which made the shot line up perfectly with the middle of the canister. They were QUITE deadly to frogs and fish back in the day. Plus, it would fit in any pocket and hold it's ammo easily.
I was excited about all the points you mention--and it worked great for a few shots, but then it broke. (This was probably due to it being the thin, "ultra-sensitve" kind, and not the thick industrial-strength variety.)
**facepalm**
omg.