Improvised Slingshot Crossbow

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Well MSTs are over and I'm really tired, not surprisingly. Every day I tell myself to get a little more rest and catch up on my sleep debt but I still end up sleeping after midnight at least.

Okay anyway, here's just a little slice of my life.

My sister's in taiwan now, she's going to be there for about a month for studying. Which just leaves the four of us at home. We celebrated with a sushi dinner the night before she left. Cheap 99 cent per plate sushi at some stadium. Very worth it.

Hmm. I've made a cool weapon in my spare time at home, because I felt like doing something interesting. I've always liked projectile weaponry and this is no exception. Originally I wanted to make a crossbow with bamboo skewers and nylon fishing line, but it didn't really work well. After two attempts (both broke after overdraw) I decided to take another approach. I found an old Y-stick and strung two rubber bands around the fork. Although the original crossbow didn't work well, the arrows did. For each arrow, I split a bamboo skewer at the end and forced in a tiny wood chip to make the nock, bound it tightly with string and reinforced it with duct tape. I then used masking tape for the fletchings. The resulting arrow was very satisfactory. It flew straight and consistently. Anyway, I realised that if I wanted more accuracy I would need a crossbow-like rest for the arrow. So I bound a skewer and added little rings of duct tape as arrow guides. Arrows would be clipped on to the slingshot rubbers by their nocks. When drawn, the arrow would rest nicely on the bamboo and fire straight when the rubber was released, while the Y-stick acted like a makeshift stock. I did not use a locking or trigger mechanism (somewhat like a bow). The resulting device was sort of an improvised slingshot, crossbow and bow into one (whatever that is).

Anyway, performance was exceptional, much better than what I had originally anticipated. Those little sticks can do some real hurt. Anyway let me give you some statistics. At full draw, this weapon could propel my bamboo skewer arrows straight into two to three layers of thick cardboard with a stack (50 or so sheets) of newspaper in between at point blank range, or pierce right through both sides of a shoebox. At full draw, the arrow could travel up to about 140 feet and penetrate cardboard up to distances of about 30 feet All the way until half draw, it could decently puncture the cardboard at a distance of 16 feet.

Of course, that's with new rubber and arrows. As with most things, usage will cause wear and tear, especially if the arrows miss the target and hit a hard wall, which will cause the head to become flat and frayed, or the arrow to splinter. The rubber bands also snap after some usage, depending on how hard I draw. (so far i've changed them about 5 times already.)



One of my arrows.



This is about 2/3 draw. This can punch through two layers of cardboard at under 10 feet.



The Improvised slingshot-crossbow-whatever. Blue is duct tape.



My arrows, total 8. (Many are already not in optimum condtion, they hit the wall and the ends chip off, I had to reshave the arrowheads.)



The cardboard shoebox that I fire arrows into.



Punched through 50 sheets of newspaper sandwiched between two layers of cardboard, at point blank range.

Anyway here are some random pics. Yesterday was PCT class. The lecturer told us that the earlier class had messed up all the PCs and we would get 9/10 GP if we could fix them. It was foolish on his part to make this offer. Immediately everyone got to work.

Dismantling the PC was the fun part. Putting it back was a headache. But it's not my pc. So it's okay.

My friend and I (we work in pairs) practically ripped apart the box and plucked out all the screws and wires without looking. Hahaha.

Then after we put everything back, the power button didn't work, the reset button became the power switch which turned on the CD rom drive. Lol.



Motherboard and hard drive!



Fun!



No space on table so just dump all on the floor.



Yay chip.

Oh yeah. I went road cycling on monday in preparation for the big expedition on saturday night. Was kinda scary with all the cars around you, especially when I accidentally went to lane 3 instead of lane 1 during one turning and got stuck there. But all in all it was a fun experience. Can't wait for saturday.



Btw this is my rubiks mini and the family's rubiks cube. Woohoo.

Okay, goodnight!

| HCH - 9:51 PM |