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Paintball Sticky Sensors
Eddy_D writes "The EETimes has a story about a group of undergraduate students at the University of Florida (Gainesville) that have developed a sticky sensor, fired from a paintball gun, to sense explosive compounds in suspect objects at a distance. The project is funded by Lockheed Martin (Missiles and Fire Control group), who is rushing to deploy this new technology to soldiers in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The goal of the project, funded by Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Missiles and Fire Control group (Orlando, Fla.), "was to help our soldiers detect improvised explosives or even chemical weapons from a distance far enough away so that they would not be hurt," even if the material detonated, said Greg Ivey, an aerospace-engineering student who graduated from Gainesville this month. A soldier with a laptop computer can monitor the projectile from up to 240 feet away.
Wouldn't this be a great combo for small biotech creations?
Pictures, chemical analysis, sample collection etc. would be a snap!
(fairly) Remote analysis of questionable objects would be a snap if you shot the device on it, enabled it with your wireless remote, and waited until it reported fully to your laptop.
Get paid to code OSS
"Be careful! it might be explosive!"
"You're right.. we'd better shoot some low-powered weaponry at it"
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
So, basically, we can deploy a shitload of these into Iraq to find the WMD's...
All jokes aside, it sounds cool, you could use any kind of sensor with it. How about one with a frequency counter?
This came to mind when I read the article:
Soldier: Thinks to himself "Hmm, suspicious vehicle parked over there." [Pop]..[Splat]..
Terrorist hidden behind car: "Paint Check!" Soldier: "Ref!, Paint Check, I mean Bomb Check that suspect!"
Terrorist: "No fair, he over shot me." "and Crono that gun!!! Is this freedom? It's got to be at least 305fps!"
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Now there will be now more arguing about whether or not it's "splatter" or a direct hit, although it looks like the golfball size bruise the generally is created will now be the size of a baseball.
Although you've obviously intended to be funny, it is a common misconception that elaborate explosives can usually be triggered by a "nudge". This is hardly the case -- think about nuclear weapons, which require an elaborate creation of slow neutrons, or even simple explosives that require the mixing of two compounds.
The force of a missile blast with compounds inside will be sufficient to mix the two compounds (usually, but even then, not always, as plenty of missiles are "duds" for this reason). Shooting a golf-ball sized detector-weapon at this is hardly dangerous. The reason they build explosives so that they're hard to set off is so they DON'T accidentally detonate while being constructed or transported.
That said, this is an extremely cool invention (and maybe I'm biased considering where I'm based...)
Having played a bit of paintball I can say if the velocity is cranked up and can (and has) puntured skin.
Tear gas paintballs already exist (heh) but I always thought it would be cool if traffic cops could tag your car with a paintball transponder...... blow through a speed trap? why chase em?
mark em and wait for them to stop either because they thought they got away or because they've realized the car is marked.
OR maybe you could use them to deliver a russian style sleeping gas..... (just don't drop em) its easy to get a paintball into a window..
You could crank the gas up and fire a wooden dowel (sharpened no doubt).
just rambling but this is pretty cool and paintball guns have gone a long way from the 'marking trees for forestry' beginning.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
bitchslap: "pfft. you clearly know -nothing- about paintball guns."
...
a good paintball gun will let you dial in whatever you want, and get the ball there. put an army-style range-finder on an electropneumatic, fill its hopper/feeder full of gummy-PIC's, fill the tank, charge the battery, calibrate, and you've got fieldable ball-placement in whatever nook and cranny you engender to explore
*sigh* i loved my cyber 9000, the few times it worked. i'm sure those guys have moved on to far better stuff...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Anyone a Spiderman fan? He used to have Spidey Tracers (I think Batman had something similiar) that he used to throw at a retreating enemey so he could track them later. Sometimes he used to web them in place.
If this sticks to the target (my impression is that it does) you could shoot them at departing cars and such and track them from a distance.
... as the guys at my local paintball place, we're in big trouble.
Seriously, shoot some UV dyed hot pepper balls into unruly crowds/at people with guns.
It won't kill 'em, but they'd probably wish they were dead (for a while). Then you can use some UV lights to track the ones you hit (where they've been, where they've gone, what they've touched)
Well I dono about your neck of the woods. Or what kinda redneck dipshit paintball you play
Here fields are limited to 300 FPS, for saftey reasons. As is MOST of the country
"a good paintball gun will let you dial in whatever you want, and get the ball there" Sure but its friggin stupid, you think you can fire a ball at high speed ? BULLSHIT, in a word, you every try to fire a paintball at > 500 fps ? 70 % of the time it just disentegrates in the barrel.
I have seen paintball guns modified to fire bolts (crossbow arrows) and blowdarts at some 600 FPS
MOST tournament regusltaions used to say that a paintball gun could NOT be externally adjustable, so fucktards didnt go aroung setting em up hot once the chrono'd
Ive been playing since 92, I have owned many guns the first few pumps, Tippman, I had an SMG 60 until you couldnt find balls anynmore (now you can again) and I had a coup[le of sheridan carbines, and pair of ORIGINAL Budd Orr Autocockers a PMI3 later renamed VM68 , I know all about ball placemnt and getting away with hot guns, I could field strip and turn up or down my PMI3 inside 30 seconds, they used to call me the Telephone Man (Reach out and touch someone) and guys would scream to the refs to chrono me , albeit it always came out at right around 300 fps.
Sure but its friggin stupid, you think you can fire a ball at high speed ? BULLSHIT, in a word, you every try to fire a paintball at > 500 fps ? 70 % of the time it just disentegrates in the barrel.
... I got in more trouble on the field doing that, than I did for over-taco'ing ...
... or hell, yeah ... even just a few cheap Tippmans could work, i'll bet.
Umm... re-read that, dude. I didn't mention speed, anywhere, in reference to control.
I could dial the cyber9k waaay down and it would 'softly' curve the ball
i'll be the military could use electro-pneumatics and range-finding, if they had to
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Ok, not strictly on topic, but from the article tagline of PORTLAND, Ore, the team doing the discovery in Gainesville, Fla, and the writer having a Spirit One e-mail address that is the same ISP I use, I find it very interesting that this article could be written 3000 miles away from the actual research.
Plus, I noticed it because I had hopes of getting my hands on one of the prototypes when I saw the Portland, OR tagline- hoping that the team working in Florida was a mistake and that the balls were being produced at some paintball place close to me. I'd LOVE to have a civilian/spytech version of this tech- say a small audio sensor that could be fired from a paintball gun to stick to somebody's window.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yup right on the nose and 18 incher SP , also my old Sheridan Carbine with a really scratched brass barrel, dono why but man was that thing a longballer. I acually had 2 kills in one game not even able to see the target I was pinned down and all I could expose was my gun, another fellow about 5 yars away was having gun problems but could see so he was directing my fire, long and accurate.
I built a modified barrel once that had a slot cut in the top, then a rubber stru in that slot, I had honed it outBIG , the rubber strip would impart a SERIOUS backward spin on the ball the thing would hook UP wildly, I could lob balls twice the distance of anyone else, the only problem was it used to love to break balls and wouldnt clean well so after you broke your first ball you had to change barrels.
Terrorists, have reinvented the 'sticky bomb' in a new spring shade of mauve.
Eat at Joe's.
It won't kill 'em, but they'd probably wish they were dead (for a while).
or make them wish they werent suddenly permanently blind in one eye with a hot burning chemical burn sensation in their eyesocket...
you know there's a reason why people wear protective goggles at paintball games.
A paintball gun typically fires ar 300 FPS , NOW Lets say they crank it up a bit for the increased payload and no need for a saftey threshold to homans. Ok now if youve ever been hit with a paintball at 450 fps, it hurs and hasforce behind it.
Firing that at a potentially explosive package with the limited range (300 ft) I think Ill just have to passon that one
Well, good thing you're not in charge. You'd rather go up to it and kick it instead?
Furthermore, most explosives don't go off when you hit them, regardless of what you remember from Bugs Bunny. You fire this into a pile of trash on the side of the road to see if there if there are bomb-indicating chemicals in it. Get a clue before commenting.