Gizmodo: Slingshot

Water Balloon Slingshot Brings the Wet into Hot American Summers

Elaine Chow — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Now that we're headed deep into the middle of summer, it's time to bring out water balloons and figure out ingenious ways to fling them at your enemies. Here's a great tutorial at Instructables for making a wicked water balloon catapult using surgical tubing, a rag and other random doohickies from around the house. According to the dude responsible for this weapon of watery destruction, this shooter will never explode the water balloon prematurely, unlike some of the types you get in stores. [Instructables]

Who Needs Superman? Slingatron Slingshots Stuff Into Space

Jason Chen — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:20:20 EDT

This Slingatron is the greatest thing we can think of to free up Superman's time for other things, like courting Lois or getting drunk and being a dick. Instead of spending $10,000 per pound to send stuff into space with traditional rockets, this Slingatron design is like a centrifuge that spins things around until they reach escape velocity before sending them flying into space.

By using thermal shielding and special coating, the creator can bypass current problems with spinning crap around really fast and throwing it. But be careful, if we make like Supes IV and launch all our nukes into the Sun, it's just an open invitation for General Zod to come and enslave all of us. And I for one do not welcome our chin-bearded overlords. – Jason Chen

Project Page [Slingatron via Danger Room via Sci Fi]

Human Slingshot: Natural Selection at Work or Just Plain Fun?

Charlie White — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:20:00 EST

That's one brave gal strapped into that human slingshot. This can't be safe. But then, if it were completely safe, it wouldn't be as much fun. Okay, it's unanimous: We all want to do this, today.

To paraphrase, nay, twist the words of Benjamin Franklin, those who sacrifice fun for safety deserve neither fun nor safety. But only to a certain point. That said, don't try this at home. – Charlie White

The Human Slingshot [The Uber Review]

US Military Developing Gigantic Magnetic 21,600mph Slingshot

Charlie White — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 12:07:57 EST

Since the US military sucks up nearly a trillion dollars of our income taxes every year, they have plenty of money to blow, and here's one of the cool toys such prodigious amounts of cash will buy: it's a giant magnetic slingshot. But the spending has hardly even started on this one yet—the Air Force so far has contributed a paltry half million dollars to LaunchPoint Technologies to develop its idea of a satellite launch system that accelerates its payload around a giant ring using magnetic levitation (MagLev) technology.

How are they really going to use this?

This all sounds like a great idea until you realize that the 220-pound payload proposed to be launched by this device will be exposed to 10,000Gs of force as it's accelerated to a speed of 6 miles per second. Heck, that's 21,600mph. Imagine the noise that thing will make. Notice in the pictures here that it's situated out in the middle of nowhere.

Satellite launcher? We're thinking it's probably going to be slinging lethal projectiles at those who hate America, rather than launching harmless and useful things like satellites. – Charlie White

Spin Me Up, Scotty [PopSci, via OhGizmo]

Laser Sight'd Slingshot

Brian Lam — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 12:36:35 EDT

This slingshot has a laser-pointer integrated into its frame. The manufacturer guarantees that it's dangerous to 250 feet, and can hit beer cans or filthy city pigeons at 50 feet.–Brian Lam

PS-52 Slingshot w/Laser Sight [slingshotshop.com]