Did you ever wish that you could use a gauss rifle? Is the endless botting to get the right levels getting to you? Well that's no problem. Build your own!
http://www.scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/gauss.html

That's awesome! As soon as I can get some money to buy some magnets, I'm so making that.

Already made it. :)

Be careful, don't let the magnets chip.

Only a $26 kit, for so much fun... But how to make it go faster?

Lol, thats awesome.

I wonder if stronger mangets over a 2 foot distance would be any better...

Do they have real gauss cannons/rifles yet? I mean you'd think that if it was this easy they'd be able to make one that's much smaller, and therefore could pack more of a punch when crammed into a barrel the length of a sniper rifle. And all it would take to reload would be to reverse the magnetic force. Hmmmm...

Yeah, I bought their kit, and all that survives today is a bag containing my "balls of steel". The magnets chip in about three uses. I did put a hole in a wall though (with two kits and a yardstick)

Bah, I want a cheap room-temperature superconductor so I can make myself a nice railgun... :D

neat. Hmm... summer ideas... YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've seen one somewhere on the net where some kid had the thing flying a few times faster than sound...

It'd be an interesting experiment to try with other forces. For example, I wonder what would happen if you motorized the magnets so that they moved back and forth...

Let's see:

Tp reverse the flow of magnetic energy, there is really one way I know of and that is to use elecrical signals to activate and deactivate the magnets.

Arolte, currently I don't beleive that there are any Guass Rifles issued to anyone. I do beleive that the US Army has a low priority development program to create a Guass Rifle and perhaps even some sort of Guass Tank/Artillery piece.

Also, to prevent chipping, couldn't you potentally lightly pad the magnet (say with Duct Tape or something) so as it would not lose it's conduction but also wouldn't chip as easily?

Padding will decrease the energy transfer between balls.

To increase the speed you can get stronger magnets, look for a more efficient distance between magnets, or make it longer. Or all three!

Pyro: Bottom of this page. But not cheap, or a strong one.
https://secure.avdns7.com/~scitoys/cgi-bin/shop.exe?page=magnet_desc.html

You can decrease the chances of chipping and still retain most of the communicated kinetic energy by adding thin steel plates to the surfaces of the magnets that are struck by the balls. This will serve to spread the impact of the ball along the entire face of the magnet instead of just the point of contact with the ball.

God likes to tease us by making all his really fun creations too delicate to be useful.

Damn you God!












Is it getting warm in here?

Oh yah, be sure to line up the poles of the magnets correctly, otherwise it won't go nearly as fast as it can.