How To Build Your Own DIY Water Blaster #SaturdayMorningCartoons

NewImage

How To Build Your Own DIY Water Blaster. via Popular Science

Summertime means rising temperatures—and, often, rising tempers. If your friends and family want to beat the heat without beating each other, there’s a surefire option: squirt-gun fight! But shelling out for a few $20-or-more water weapons can rapidly thin a wallet. That’s why you should take matters into your own hands, visit the hardware store, and exercise some garage ingenuity to build an inexpensive yet durable arsenal of Waterzookas. Popular Science likes this version from the website Instructables.com, but we tweaked it to stay current with the latest water-gun technology. Follow these instructions to keep your cool.

Materials

2-inch-by-24-inch Schedule 40 PVC pipe

1¼-inch-by-24-inch PVC pipe

Two 2-inch PVC caps

Two 1¼-inch PVC caps

1¼-inch PVC coupler

Buna-N 1.6-inch ID by 0.21-inch CS O-ring

PVC glue (8 ounces is plenty)

Tube of waterproof silicone grease

Instructions

Cut: Take the thinner 24-inch pipe [2], and saw off a 2-inch-long piece. Smooth the edges with sandpaper.

Drill: This is the fun part. New water guns let you pick nozzles that can soak people in a variety of ways. Imitate them by drilling one ¼-inch-diameter hole, or several ⅛-inch-diameter holes, in the end of one 2-inch PVC cap [3]. A small, ⅛-inch-wide slit also works well. (Our favorite configuration? Three holes that deliver a shotgun-style blast.) Cut or drill a larger, 1¾-inch hole in the other 2-inch cap; this will be your piston guide.

Glue: Assemble the piston by applying PVC glue [7] to one end of the 2-inch pipe you sawed off in step A and to one end of its 22-inch counterpart. Insert both glued ends into either end of the PVC coupler [5]. Ease the O-ring [6] over the 2-inch piece of pipe, then glue one of the 1¼-inch caps [4] to the 2-inch piece.

Grease: To build the gun’s body, glue the nozzle (the 2-inch cap with the small hole(s) you drilled) onto the 2-inch-by-24-inch PVC pipe [1]. Let the glue dry for 15 minutes, then dab some grease [8] inside the pipe.

Assemble: Stick the piston into the body, then push, pull, and wiggle it around to evenly distribute the grease. This will create a smooth, watertight seal. Next, work the piston guide (the 2-inch cap with the 1¾-inch hole you made) over the piston, and slide the piston guide onto the body. Don’t glue it! Take the other 1¼-inch cap and glue it to the piston.

Douse: Your Waterzooka is ready for action. Dip the business end into water—a lake, a pool, a bucket—pull the handle to suck water into the barrel, and then push it in to fire. Just make sure to build a few for your spouse, kids, and mother-in-law so they can defend themselves. Well, maybe not your mother-in-law.

Time: 2 hours
Cost: About $15 for a bunch of guns
Difficulty: Moderate

NewImage

Read More


Each Saturday Morning here at Adafruit is Saturday Morning Cartoons! Be sure to check our cartoon and animated posts both nostalgic and new that inspire makers of all ages! You’ll find how-tos for young makers, approaches to learning about science and engineering, and all sorts of comic strip and animated Saturday Morning fun! Be sure to check out our Adafruit products featuring comic book art while you’re at it!


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.