On his YouTube channel, The Practical Engineer, Emiel Noorlander, unveiled the new Playing Card Machine Gun. The handheld blaster can fire playing cards at 120 mph (around 200 km/h).
Emiel loves to create different innovative objects to improve everyday life, and this time the engineer attacked a fairly original machine. Inspired by a similar previous creation by ex-NASA engineer Mark Rober, Noorlander’s handheld blaster is, according to him, a little smaller and less complex. This time, The Practical Engineer wanted to push the concept further by improving the speed also.
In a 15 minute video and on his website, he explains how he built the tool. The playing card machine gun uses a pair of motors. One motor with a wheel pushes one card at a time from a stack of cards to another motor, which has a larger wheel and rotates at speeds greater than 25,000 rpm. Working with two high-speed bearings, this second motor launch the card, giving it both forward as well as rotary motion.
The blaster is powered by a battery, which makes it easier to operate the machine. Running at around 60% of its full power, the machine can launch the cards at the speeds of 200 km/h and higher.
The engineer explains, however, that increasing the power could be dangerous for the shooter. The speed used still allows the cards to easily get stuck in the polystyrene target, and even to split another card in half.
