activity guidelines

[Prairie_Scouter]

Thanks for that info, Pack. For a second there, I thought we were going to have to cancel our cruise missile activity. And, right after I got ahold of those laser guidance systems, too. We haven't had this much fun since we worked on the "mini-reactor" that's a part of the new "Chernoble" program feature.

 

However, as I'm writing this, there's an ad at the top of the response page for the "Potato Guns Online Store". Hmmmm. Really, I would tend to think that you'd have to be really careful about this. An exploding barrel would not be a fun time. I think if I was going to do this (I, who have been noodling around the idea of rocket powered pinewood derby cars ), I'd opt for compressed air. Feels safer, although I don't know that it really is.

[OldGreyEagle]

We could always turn to the potato gun miscreants in California for technical advice.

[hops_scout]

For all you naysayers out there, what do you really know about potato guns?

 

Funny I read this as we just experimented with the spud guns recently in my high school Physics class-- that's right, we had guns at school. Anyway, the first day, we used one with a single barrel using hair spray and a zapper. Touch the zapper to a nail inserted in the back of the barrel, the electric shock transfers from nail to nail and sparks the hair spray. Bam! Oh, and did I mention we were using golf balls as projectiles?! (wrapped in electric tape for both padding and to add to the diameter) We also used a plastic recycle bin full of paper as the target. Nothing like launching a golf ball at a muzzle velocity of 70+ mph!! Of course, we did that inside the school;)

 

After one class broke the single barrelled spud gun (little bit too much hair spray launching projectile at initial velocity of 105 mph!, we moved out to the athletic field to launch the projectiles out of with another gun. This one, however, was using compressed air and it was a a barrel and then a chamber that the air collected in. I don't remember much about this one, but it launched pretty good at an angle of about 50 degrees.

 

These things are FUN!

 

Also, using spud guns in this use and playing lazor tag are quite different. Personally, I like the idea of them using this as a patrol-building activity provided there is adult supervision and safety requirements met.

 

 

PS-- our spud guns were made up of mainly PVC piping and both guns have a couple years use to them.

[packsaddle]

Hops_scout, I built my first one in high school back in 1967. PVC pipe wasn't the same and it wasn't as easy to find so we used galvanized pipe. And we didn't use potatoes but tennis balls and turnips (close enough to a potato). And we used lighter fluid, acetylene, propane, black powder, and gasoline all as propellants (propane being the actual component of hair spray that is used today). And most of us are still alive today. But we didn't do these apocalyptically stupid things as part of the scouting program. We did these secretly because we knew no adult in their right mind would permit it.