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T-Shirt Cannon
SnakeStu writes "If you thought the T-shirts at ThinkGeek were cool, imagine them flying 160 feet through the air (courtesy of Crawford International Theatrical Corporation [CITC])."
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Granted I didn't read the article, but aren't t-shirt bazookas pretty old hat? They even did a Simpsons episode with them.
Damn I'm so old school... My t-shirt cannon doesn't have a quick reloader. :(
Isn't this what killed Maude Flanders on the Simpsons?
Well that'll certainly improve the rate at which I can get dressed of a morninng....
The only thing these cannons are good for is knocking neighbors wifes out of the stands at a local racing venue!
KARMA TAG! You're it.
We had this things launching tshirts at us in the bleachers at USC (Carolina, not SoCal) football games a couple years ago.
It looks like it would be fun for the first ten minutes, but who really needs these other than emcees at basketball games?
I dunno...isn't that how Mod died? Products like these should be taken off the market before less liked characters started getting picked off.
"No footlongs"
-Ned flanders last words to Mad
Children, please be careful. Specifically, don't put frogs in them, and don't ever look down the barrel of one! (by choice)1 870788
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/bizarre/
thats the first thing I thought and was going to post! Great minds... err wait - do I really want to compare my mind to that of a Frogking? :P
...why a T-shirt?
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
During commercial breaks to keep the audiences alive.
are endless!
"This unit includes everything you need to launch soft items further and faster. The 2? X 23? PVC holds big surprises for your audience and creates lots of attention. Other soft items besides your rolled up T-Shirts are Nerf Balls, Puff Balls, confetti, streamers, advertising leaflets, hot dogs, feathers, SnoBiz® or other snow flake products, rose pedals, balloons (uninflated), etc."
I was just thinking to myself the other day... wouldn't it be nice if I could pull these hot dogs and brats off of the grill and launch them onto a plate in the house?
Didn't Maud Flanders teach us that shooting T-Shirts can be deadly?
When I die I hope FANdumanium will do a 21 T-Shirt Salute.
NIEN, das ist NICT EIN SECOND POST!
:-D)
(ok, I'll stop now... been a loooong day.
I feel like ive just been lead through a series of useless advertisements.
-BMojo
News for nerds, stuff that matters! Stuff like 64-bit cpus and the matrix and.... t-shirt.. launching?
If it's new, can it really be improved?
Karma: Non-Heinous
At just $1,400 this thing is a steal. Now I can launch all of those t-shirts I've wanted to hurl...wait a second..WTF do I need this for again.
I'll just stick to my good old spudlauncher (http://www.idahospudfire.com/main.htm)
Sig:
I'm not the best programmer, and I'm not the best basketball player;
But I'm the best basketball palyer on my programming team;
and I'm the best programmer on my basketball team.
Yeah right. Like that's not going to be used for firing potato rounds.
SPUD GUN?!?!? why pay 1500 bucks for one of those?! build your own for less than 100
www.necroticobsession.com
That eating hot dogs was just too damned hard. I asked her if there was any way she could simply shoot them into my mouth, and I think I've just found the solution. Goodbye chewing!
Ever been to a hockey game? how about a monster truck rally? Do you know what football is? I've seen these for years and also in use! ohhh.
"Other soft items besides your rolled up T-Shirts are Nerf Balls, Puff Balls, confetti, streamers, advertising leaflets, hot dogs, feathers..."
HOT DOGS?
Is that really how you want your hot dog served to you?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Now the marketing fiends have corrupted the once noble potato canon.
We even had these at high school football games shooting t-shirts into the bleachers. Other objects work well too. You could make one yourself for much less cost.
They use these things all the time a kings games. Though personally I prefer the old method where they'd have to scantly clad girls hold one of those slingshot gizmos while the mascot loaded a t-shirt and shot it into the crowd. It didn't have the range but damn-it looks are important. ;-)
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
T-shirts are nice, and everything, but please, do tell, does it launch potatoes?
This will simplify doing my laundry. Instead of washing my shirts, I can blow them over the fence into my neighbor's yard. Or across the street. At 160' range, I can probably fling them over the freeway. How wide is a freeway?
I wonder if I can use this for my old socks as well? That would be handy.
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
I would have more people to threaten and put at risk of losing an Eye. I would be able to throw my custom shirts around and do all kinds of damage...
There could be a whole business promo thing going on here. Stand at a Pizza Hut and fire promo pictures over to Domino's. Or better yet, I could travel down to Texas and blast some Gateway Shirts at Dell. Stand outside Microsoft and pelt the building with Linux shirts, things like that. Civil Disobedience and Advertising finailly mix, at least in ways that does not require Butterflys.
Seriously. My neighbour's wife was killed with one of these things.. we were all at a racing exhibition and... ouhm, wait... doughnuts!
They've used these for a while to launch tshirts to people at the Manitoba Moose games. When i first saw them, i thought they were launching hotdots into the crowds instead of tshirts.
They've been doing this stunt for years at Route 66 raceway. What's so differn't?
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Thinking about maude flanders?
Like this?
i was thinking the same thing. so many of the "news for nerds" articles and their replies are really out there. if youve been to any pro sports event you should have seen one of these.
its like the article about the car that was hacked up to get a better quarter mile time. the article and its comments were like "case modding for cars!", apparently nobody knew that cars were getting "modded" waaaaay before frickin' computer cases?
The US Military is arming its soldiers with t-shirt cannons to fight the war against terrorism!
On royal canadian air farce ?
http://www.airface.com
you can d/l all their episodes / watch online for free.
Think it'd be possible to rocket-launch with one of these?
Was'nt Ned Flanders wife killed by one of these?
http://www.kubuntu.org/
A T-shirt cannon? My first reaction was, how nerdy. But you know, anything that can take out a Flanders is fine by me.
"Finally!"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
$1,400? No thank you. I can make my own for $25 worth of PVC pipe from Home Depot, a couple cans of aquanet, and an old grill sparker. Mine has multiple ammo options too, such as potatoes and such... Heres My Model
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
A person could kick some serious ass on the paint ball field with one of these. It's like a mortar launcher, or shotgun, depending on use. Load it up with 100 paintballs and wipe out the other team. Get one huge paintball, well, you get the picture.
Do you have ESP?
The peeps at JavaOne(SM) used these things to shoot shirts into the crowds of developers. Real neat, but I fail to see why this is posted on /.
/.
Then again, I fail to see why a lot of things are posted on
Now maybe if some busty blondes were operating the shirt canons...
but did anyone notice : New for 2002 is the lighter-weight version of our T-Shirt Launcher with better performance.
umm...does the year mentioned strike anyone as odd for "news." nerdy news should still take place in the same year as the event.
Dear Dr. Zaius,
Regarding the new devices we uncovered... I see these as the perfect tool in which to launch nets to catch those pesky humans. While the original design was not intended for this we believe it will be trivial to adjust the units.
Current technologies are begining to waiver in effectiveness and just last week we had one rude human scream out some babble along the lines of "You damned dirty apes".
Thanks,
Dr. Itchy
Human Catching Services
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
You could make one of those with 20 bucks in PVC pipe and a bit if ingenuity. I've made similar things in the past and it's not difficult.
Are you a neurosurgeon looking for business here?
/. don't think ThinkGeek T-shirts are cool?
Seriously, how many people reading
I have seen simple slingshots that are probably reaching 160ft easy with rolled up tshirts. They are probably only a few dollars, although it takes three to operate.
How is this different from taking your handy home air compressor and attaching it to a PVC pipe? I did this with a 1/2" pipe once when I was a kid-- I could clear acorns into the neighbors yard pretty easily. I couldn't find a bigger pipe so I couldn't launch anything significant.
MTX Audio shot out T-shirts at the 1997 CEMA show using a gas powered cannon. Am I supposed to be impressed?
Really it's nothing ne. Kansas State Unv uses one at basketball games to launch shirts and other K-State stuff into the stands. It's a big hit. I was in their pep band as a tuba player. One time we managed to get the mascots attention. I waved my sousaphone side to side to make him notice me. He aimed at me a with a small jump on my part hit the bullseye. The rolled up shirt hit the bell dead center and slipped into my horn. It was hilarious. Back on topic. These things aren't exactly new. What will we hear about next? Rubberband guns?
put me in the shirt when I'm shot with it(like the Jetsons) then you would have something. Nothing like getting dressed in .5 seconds.
At the United Center in Chicago, they fire tee shirts up from the court area during Bulls and Blackhawk games, and we've gotten them flying into our top tier -skybox-. This is not new technology!
50 comments, and 25 of them are about the Simpsons. And you know what the sad part is? Not one of them has spelled "Maude Flanders" name right.
;) ;)
Remember, boys: It's M-A-U-D-E.
Not:
Mad (personal favorite)
Mod
Maud
I tell you. Get killed off by a T-Shirt cannon and all respect is gone...
"...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
Next up: "Auto shows copying Comdex and Linux Expo! Rumors of booth babes outside tech sector!!!"
We cannot allow a t-shirt cannon gap!
t
If someone is interested in a cheaper solution (or to make thier own) see here
The also have some really cool stuff with machined aluminum potato cannons using propane and oxygen!
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Other soft items besides your rolled up T-Shirts are Nerf Balls, Puff Balls, confetti, streamers, advertising leaflets, hot dogs, feathers, SnoBiz® or other snow flake products, rose pedals, balloons (uninflated), etc.
Good lord, they've come up with something worst than browser pop-ups...
(yeah the hot dogs would hurt too).
I haven't been to any of those sites. What are the URLs?
I gotta hand it to ya. At least you are a creative troll.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
LOL! word for word I was thinking the same thing... 'has michael ever been to a sporting event'
doh!
Obligatory Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy Reference
The Slashdot editors try to stay out of the Asylum.
Is this an AD???
/. would i have seen this article? or would it have been thrown out with the banners?
I didnt see any how to? just a "where to buy"
If I subscribed to
WHAT THE HELL?
moo.
if you've never been, you gotta go. they have beenusing them there for years.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Why couldn't someone post something more interesting like a link to a webcam where you can watch paint dry (that would be funny does anyone know where I can find one of these).
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
For that kinda cash you could just bomb them from a helicopter.
But it IS new!
And improved!
Says so right there!
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
These were in use at USoC, too.
...For the Wet T-Shirt Cannon..
Spring break anyone?
---
Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun
Until someone gets hit by a stinky geek-shirt that hasn't been washed in months.
It occurred to me that the launching tube is made out of PVC. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't PVC pipe usually used for drainage applications, and thus not suited for high-pressures? And thus, couldn't the pipe (theoretically) shatter and explode? I certainly wouldnt want to be holding that thing anywhere near my crotch when it fires...
From Wherever to Whenever.
Oh, how I wish I had Maude points right now... ;)
Maude parent up!
Is it just me, or was this story reallly ... unnecessary? The maker of the t-shirt cannon was on an episode of Monster Garage and I have to say, that was definitely much cooler than just this lousy t-shirt launcher. At least with them, they were rapid firing newspaper bundles. Talk about extreme paperboy :-) (Where is Atari when you really need them!)
I am not quite sure about US, but, if you are living in UK or other countries with similar law, you may need a gun license to operate this.
Usually, a gun is defined as a device which can fire a projectile/bullet with an energy of greater than 2J measured at the muzzle.
Assuming the weight of a T-shirt is 40 g, the max height it reaches is 50m, ignoring all the loss due to friction/air resistance, the min energy is mgh=0.04*9.81*50=19.6J...
Take care!
you insensitive claude!
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
So let me get this straight... a frog (a soft, squishy animal) was shot out of a potato gun, and broke a kid's face (a hard, bony face).
Here's what I want to know: what did the frog look like?
...if you manage to get a post on Slashdot. Cool item, but nothing more than a shameless plug.
Oh, you're one of those people. *hides contempt* ... :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
At UT... they even have launchers that look like big coke bottle shotguns. This is nothing new... boo on Slashdot!
dude, these thing have been around awhile... i've seen these things at the Houston Aero's hockey games and Houston Astros' games...
get something new and cool... altho these are cool, they ain't new...
The only thing that has improved here is your FAILURE RATE. You FAIL, whether you're dressed or not.
Sorry, you're not allowed to use this on your old socks. That would count as biological warfare.
A monster truck rally fan reads slashdot?
SIMPSONS DID IT!
--DV
In this day it is safer to be a ninja than a samurai
thats weak i made a potato gun once that could shoot almost a mile using butane
I was at a WWE smackdown at the Spokane Arena, and they had a t-shirt cannon, but from what I could tell, it didn't have a CO2 cylinder. The distance that it shot seemed to be controlled by a pneumatic arm or something. It seemed easy enough to reload it, just stick one or two shirts in the barrel, and it was ready to fire.
It had an awesome range though. I want one!
- This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along, move along..
The local DJ's in the Quad Cities, Dwyer & Michaels, have been doing this. They originally started out with the huge slingshots, but then switched over to the canons.
One of the guys is also a motorhead, with a rebuilt '58 sedan. And I think it was a couple of years ago, or maybe last year, that they decided they wanted to mount a t-shirt canon on their car ("Fordzilla").
Now, I haven't seen the finished product, as I no longer live in the area, but I hear that it's pretty cool. I've managed to find some links:
These were all from Dwyer & Michael's website: 2dorks.com.
User Home Page -> Preferences -> Home Page -> Ignore Messages From -> Michael-> Save
a local Philly radio station tested out the deleterious effects of such a device on one of their associate producers. Grab a look here
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
The Phillie Phanatic has had one of these for many years.
This is nothing new - they've been using these at Jimmy Buffett concerts for years. Its not my kind of music, but, those folks know a party!
the customer starts sizing items he sees at Home Depot and on ThinkGeek.
To: custserv@thinkgeek.com
Subject: Plush Tux Doll
Will this fit in a 4" diameter t-shirt cannon?
Better yet, is there anything in stock that will fit in a cannon?
Quote: New for 2002, only $1,400.00
If you thought the T-shirts at ThinkGeek were cool-
;)
Well I guess I'm out.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Why, when I read this story, did I get an image of Blue Man Group using this to fire things out into the audience?
www.eFax.com are spammers
You forget that the average slashbot never will leave his mother's basement during an evening, much less go to a sporting event, where *gasp* there are other people! and *gasp* many of them are in better shape! and *double gasp* some sporting events are held outside!!
If you go to the Montreal Canadiens' hockey games, between periods a big go-cart comes on the ice. There's a driver and a gunner with a pneumatic t-shirt cannon.
He fires quite a few into the crowd. I caught one of the t-shirts once.
New Price For 2002!
A much lower cost version of this can be made from PVC pipe. using a lawn sprikler solenoid valve and a tire stem one can make a single-shot air cannon for under $50 (under$100 if you want to get fancy) i've used these in the past, and my air cannon can shoot a D size battery about 500 yards (with a 45 degree tilt for optimum ballistics) the t-shirt model was built to launch t-shirts into the crowds at stadiums,my favorite mods are confetti, big feathers (you expect a big BANG, but you get a little tickle!), just filling the barrel with water (About two quarts, you'll have to brace it on your hip, but nothing beats it in a water fight) and using a 4 inch barrel and sabots to launch toilet paper (you can unroll an entire roll in the air) anyway, these are a much better alternative to your usual potato cannon. i do like the use of the high pressure sprayer valve for using co2, that opens up many more options.
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
These things are old news to anyone who has taken in a baseball or basketball game in person over the last 2 or 3 years. However, most of the ones I have seen didn't need the use of a backpack. I assume the ones I am talking about use some sort of CO2 canister similar to those found in most CO2 powered BB guns.
i certainly wouldn't want to be hit by a machined aluminium potato
This is nothing new at all. Potato Guns and Spudguns have been around for years, and are immensely cheaper than 1400 dollars. Though most of the pnuematic guns aren't self contained like that, It doesn't necessarily rule out the possiblity that one could be built (and for much less than 1400 bucks).
For more links regarding Spud Guns & the like:
If you're not paranoid, then you're not paying enough attention. - Unknown, Slashdot
Ned better sue these guys... okely-dokely?
8==8 Bones 8==8
Damn, I could slap that thing together for a couple hundred bucks. Who would seriously pay 1400 bucks for that thing?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
has anyone considered what may happen to a large crowd when a person who appears to be wielding a gun waltzes onstage and aims the thing at the audience?
Well-known stilt waker Bill "Stretch" Coleman (Stiltwalker.com) has been useing one of these for a while now with great sucess. You can read his review of the T-shirt cannon here.
Instead build discarding sabots and use the thing to launche darts!
FRA: STFU GTFO
"Rose Pedal"? Sounds like it would hurt if it hit you though.
Some guy at work said he was on the steps at a hockey game when someone shot a t-shirt into the crowd. Hit him square in the nuts and doubled him over. Unfortunately, one of the video cameras caught it, so everyone else in the arena saw him get nailed on the jumbotron.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
http://www.spudtech.com sells T-Shirt launchers cheaper than this. They're made of PVC; however, they're also passed through rigorous testing standards before leaving the shop.
Do nerds and geeks GO to sporting events? (Unless that robot kiling thingy counts)
High two-figure range sounds about right for my budget, sure beats the hell out of having to carry clothes to the wash machine.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone