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The Lineup

Machine
#1

#2
#3
Design
 Powerfull angle grinder motor with a high rate feeder. The feeder was a steel bar card cage with a motorized feed wheel. Dual interlocking Dremel tools with a motorized card shuffler mounted as the card feeder. I'm not sure how fast the Dremels were running but the dials were set at about half of its full speed range. Any higher and the device would shake off the table!. Tension controlled interlocking rollerblade wheels powered by counter rotating angle grinder. With a 1:1.5 gear, the drive wheel spun at approx 15,000rpm at 60% power.
Performance
 Very high rep rate, easily the fastest horizontal velocity of the three. Most accurate & consistent feed. Flight pattern of the well spaced card stream was amazingly straight and tightly grouped. Very high rep rate, high speed. The rollerblade wheels grip well.
Issues
 The feeder's delivery platform position/angle was crutial for clean launches, one degree off and cards would flutter out uncontrollably. Bad tracktion at high speeds with the small metal wheels. The same as Jonathan's - required reloading decks by hand. Feeder was non existant - the machine was fed cards by hand by lifting a stack into one of the rollerblade wheels. Cool looking, less accurate, prone to clogging.
Geek

Brett

Nick

Jonathan

Brett's Machine

 

 

 

Nick's Machine

 

Jonathan's Machine

 

Fire as many cards into a block of foam & small wastepaper basket 45ft away.

This contest was very very entertaining. First of all - simply being in an overcrowded room full of hack built machines running at dangerously high-speeds is enough to redefine the term "Natural Selection". In fact, the sounds of wheel pieces flying off and the smell of burning rubber turn this scientific competition into a cross between junkyard war and a comedy nightmare. I think the "don’t try this at home" would be fitting but unfortunately, we DID try this at home!

We setup and fired one at a time. We allowed each other a few calibration shots before the 3 full firings that counted. For each firing, we were given 5 seconds to fire as many cards as our machine can handle into a small office waste paper basket. Brett's machine won this one by 2 card margin. Nick got in 4 and I only got in one while Brett sank 6. All three machine shot at least 4 full desk of cards within the 5 second time limit.

 

 

 

VIDEOS


(Slow loading but worth it!)

Brett's amazing firing video

Nicks's super-accurate firing video

Jonathan's splatter firing video

Oh yeah, Brett shot me video

 

View All Videos

 

 

PICS

This photo is titled "Affraid to Watch".

Enough said.

 

 
Draw high card to see who goes first. Doesnt Brett look like he's up to something? For the record, he wasnt.
....a little tune up and hes ready to go!
...maybe not completly ready. Funny as this photo is, Brett still won this event. (just not this particular firing)
   

Nick came to play, look at the "game face". The images of the flying cards are 100% real - no photoshoping has been done on any of the pics on these pages.

 

If you don't have the accuracy then go for quantity. Oh, did I mention I lost this event??

(I did)

Look at them go! Flocking like a bunch of drunken birds.

 

Brett shot me, drew blood from 50feet.

It hurts more than it looks....

 

really...

 
One of the few safe vantage points. They are smiling cause' I just got shot with a card. Whats so funny?
I wasnt the only one that got shot with a 75mph playing card.
Not a very trusting crowd.
No one likes the cleanup part of course.

 

 

 

 

Launch five cards and take the distance of your furthest card.

By this point the office was coated with wall to wall cards, the machines were smoldering and were looked at as dumpster fodder to all three of us. Still, we rembered the last contest and we dragged our contraptions out to the company balcony for one more firing - this one for the big prize of free lunch.

After dragging our machines out for one last run - mine managed a late night comback by launching a card 150feet to the nearest shot of 80feet.

 



Well thoses are the hilights of the card throwing experiment - stay tuned to for other bizzare contests.. Feel free to write if you have any questions about our "research" at

CardThrowChallenge@jonathansantos.com

Maybe we will start our own little junkyard wars, or recurring tech challenges for big prizes.

Maybe not.

Back to More Experiments!

 

 

Brett's amazing firing video

Nicks's super-accurate firing video

Jonathan's splatter firing video

Oh yeah, Brett shot me video

 

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