Green Laser Steadying Contraption

If you have a green laser, I’m sure you can sympathize with me when I say that it is extremely annoying to have the little green dot go wandering around...usually into the neighbors windows. The farther away the target is, the harder it is to keep the dot in on place. Then I watched “National Treasure” and was duly fascinated by Riley Poole’s “laser on the camcorder.” Not having a camcorder, I was forced to make do with some 1/2 PVC pipe I had lying around. Since the pipe was scrap, I didn’t have to do any cutting (unfortunately, it also had 2 slide-on t-joints glued onto the pipe). The overall length is about two and a half feet, and the laser is taped 3.5” from one end. To use, you simply rests the the long end on your shoulder, with the end of the laser about level with your chin. The longer end of the pipe helps balance things out and make it more stable. I don't know how well a shorter pipe would work, but the "bazooka" style grip is perfect for me.

Maybe you could use some 1/2 steel conduit for a super strong version. Please comment with ideas, pictures, or anything else that comes into your head.

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone!

Comments

[de0509]

The thing youre referring to is moment of inertia. it is inertia but not for movement, but for rotation. so, the higher the moment of inertia, the harder to turn something. in this case, the pointer.

Thats why bullpup guns arent so accurate and also the reason modern bows have that rod sticking in front of the bow for balancing.

moment of inertia is = (mass) x (distance from pivot)^2

mass is the mass of the thing and pivot is your wrists. assuming the part sticking in front of your wrist is negligible...
so it is better to add length rather than adding mass to make it more steady

however, for a rod there is mass everywhere on the rod and distance from pivot varies. so the formula is
1/3 x M x r^2

[Kiteman]

What are you steadying the laser for?

[black hole]

As I said, it's because the laser kept wandering all over the place, and I wanted a way to keep it steady.

[Kiteman]

Yes, but what were you doing, just pointing it at stuff?

[black hole]

Pretty much, yeah. Or I'd use it to trace out constellations.