Skip to content
Skip to main content

DIY for the Weekend: Build A NERF® Blaster!

Who doesn’t love a NERF® blaster? And what could be better than a blaster that you build yourself and can be used either manually or autonomously?

Autonomous NERF Blaster created by Bryce Bigger
Autonomous NERF® Blaster created by Bryce Bigger

Bryce Bigger’s book, Build Your Own Autonomous NERF® Blaster is aimed towards those who are less familiar with coding and physical computing – however, if you are more knowledgeable about coding and tinkering, he provides more advanced alternatives to “level up” your project.

Both a Processing and an Arduino crash course are provided. By using open-source, cross-platform creative coding, Bigger provides an inexpensive way to begin. Lots of screen prints and step-by-step instructions will have you processing before you know it and give you “mad new skills” to take you into the Arduino crash course. Again, the many pictures and careful instructions will get you to the point where you will be able to use your new processing and Arduino skills to move to the next stage of building your own blaster!

Once you have those basic skills, Bigger will walk you, step-by-step, through understanding and setting up a motion detection system and creating the brains and eyes of the blaster are also carefully spelled out. He then explains his tinkering process and how he ended up designing the foam blaster for MailChimp®. All phases of the NERF® blaster development are explained clearly and include photographs and screen shots.

A complete list of parts (and some places where they may be purchased) is also given.

So, pull out your NERF® guns and enjoy the weekend!

NERF Sentinel from AdobeMAX Keynote from The Bigger Design on Vimeo.

Resources

Engineering Library TJ223 .P76 B544 2013
Engineering Library TJ223 .P76 B544 2013

 

Bigger, Bryce. 2013. Build your own autonomous NERF Blaster : programming mayhem with Processing and Arduino. New York : McGraw Hill. Engineering Library TJ223 .P76 B544 2013