Breaking the World Record The goal is to break the record for the world's smallest Nerf gun by shrinking it down three times, making it ten times smaller each time. The challenge is to make a functional Nerf gun out of one single part with no springs. They collaborate with experts in creating bendable machines from a single part and come up with compliant mechanisms that offer advantages like fewer parts, lower cost, more precision, lower weight, no friction between parts, and built-in springs.
"Mission Accomplished" After many prototypes and investigations into different ways to store energy without mechanical springs using compliant mechanisms as templates designs were created. Three final candidate designs were chosen based on their ability to achieve primary design objectives: being printed as one part without assembly. The third design was found optimal due to longer ribs offsetting backbones which allowed for storing more energy per deflection than previous designs.
The Micro Mechanisms Lab They continue shrinking down the Nerf gun even further using micro printing techniques achieving orders of magnitude finer resolution than typical printers at home.They use carbon nanotubes grown through photolithography process on silicon wafer resulting in incredibly precise tiny structures.The complaint mechanism still functions well when shrunk down hundred times smaller than original size
World's Largest Super Soaker The world's largest super soaker is better than normal ones because you can put it together yourself and prank someone. Get a CrunchLab build box subscription to experience this toy.
"Normal" Nerf Gun Shrinkage "Normal" nerf guns were shrunk down by a factor of ten, making them 1000 times smaller. The smallest one was imperceptible without an electron microscope.
Building Tiny DNA Nerf Guns DNA origami uses DNA as building material to create tiny structures like nerf guns. By using specific strands of DNA, they self-assemble into infinitesimally small nerf guns made strictly from DNA.