I twin apposed piston air-rifle..... Two pistons and springs travelling in opposite directions cancelling out and producing no recoil. I have read of one obsolete gun, the Park91 (Gafac Engineering company in England) even taking into account the mass of the pellet in one of the pistons so that the gun is completely dead.
ALex
--- On Mon, 3/1/11, Stefan Jeglinski <jeglin@4pi.com> wrote:
From: Stefan Jeglinski <jeglin@4pi.com>
Subject: [Phys-l] techshop opportunity
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Date: Monday, 3 January, 2011, 15:44
My question is: if you had access to such a facility, what would you,
as either an educator, hobbyist, career-changer, inventor, or
whatever you are, make? Would it be some cool physics demo items?
That rail-gun-in-the-garage your inner child always wanted to build?
An engineering prototype of the next greatest idea?
I'm obviously going to get experience learning to use manufacturing
machines I don't have ordinary access to. I'd like to combine this
with something that will necessitate learning additional physics of
the real-world variety. That is, I don't want to do something like
make an aluminum spice rack or a really really stable kitchen table
:-)
I'm looking for ideas. In this regard, I'm open-ended. I don't want
to just learn how to manufacture something - I want to make something
that requires some engineering or physics thought to go into it; I'll
learn twice as much. Maybe critical components for a desktop
home-made electron microscope? An engine of some sort? The rail gun,
after all? I have to use the groupon by mid-May, so I have time to
plan as well as take my time manufacturing.