
Jenga Pistol - antr
http://woodgears.ca/jenga_pistol/
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ohazi
If you haven't seen Mattias' website before, you should take some time to look
at all of the other cool stuff he's built:

[http://woodgears.ca/tools.html](http://woodgears.ca/tools.html)

This guy is awesome.

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jstanek
I especially love his marble machines. They're absolutely mesmerizing.

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defenestration
His Lego domino row building machine is pretty neat too. It does its job
pretty well, with only a few Lego blocks used.
[http://woodgears.ca/domino/index.html](http://woodgears.ca/domino/index.html)

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geuis
Mattias has a great youtube channel. Highly recommend subscribing.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCckETVOT59aYw80B36aP9vw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCckETVOT59aYw80B36aP9vw)

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neillyons
I don't do any woodworking but love to watch his videos.

Inspiring guy. He seems to make his money from selling his woodgears software
program, plans for some of his woodworking projects and from Google for being
a Youtube partner.

Pretty cool.

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nerderloo
What's really cool is that this is his hobby. He was an early BlackBerry
employee. He retired to do this full-time.

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the_cat_kittles
mattias' approach has really influenced how i think about software
engineering. not entirely surprising considering he is also a software
engineer. i think his youtube channel is really worth checking out. he has
even invented several new, amazing tools, like the "pantorouter" for cutting
perfect mortise and tennons (among other things) with a router.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZ1v4PIsYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wZ1v4PIsYI)

the way he solves, and even identifies, the problems in the woodworking domain
are, i think, very instructive for how to think about some aspects of software
design.

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jbrooksuk
My 15 year old brother made one of these a couple of years ago. He saw a video
that demoed it with the plans available for $5 but he looked at the video and
went and made it from mind.

It was so powerful, almost hilariously so!

He actually said on Facebook earlier: "I made one of these before it was
cool."

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patcon
I've been half-joking with friends about going out to the desert and playing
"gun jenga". Good to know the physics are in our favor :)

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alxndr
With an actual firearm and bullets, it might not be; bullets don't have a lot
of mass.

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hga
For this purpose, isn't it force, not mass, that matters?

F = mv^2, so the velocity of bullet is a very large factor, especially when
the terminal ballistics allow for most or all of the energy to be dumped into
the target.

And the history of cartridges, the ability to "reload", make your own custom
load, and the ability to stand off to let air resistance bleed off velocity,
means you'd likely be able to apply the exact amount of energy you'd want.

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chronial
No, impulse is what matters here, and that is mv.

And force is ma. You must be thinking of energy.

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hga
Yeah, I'm thinking of energy, but in this case I'm assuming the terminal
ballistics will dump all the bullet's energy into the block that's hit (that
it won't penetrate all the way through the block). Impulse is force over a
period of time; in this case, doesn't it equals the same thing?

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olalonde
If you're interested in this kind of stuff, this German guy has a great
channel on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/JoergSprave](https://www.youtube.com/user/JoergSprave)
(his slingshot cannon is especially impressive)

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rtpg
It's kind of interesting how the dynamics of the game completely change with
the pistol. Since you can get rid of entire rows now, you have rows of same
orientation stacked upon each other all of a sudden.

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SamReidHughes
You can get rid of entire rows without using a Jenga pistol, too. You just
have to be fast.

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hotgoldminer
Struck me that it's like a physics flash game (a la Blosics).

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yzzxy
This just in: life imitates art.

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BorisMelnik
Have I told you about the Jenga block catcher© I'm building?

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jedanbik
What a creative person!

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pla3rhat3r
A Jenga shotgun to be used with those oversized sets would be far more
impressive. lol

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cwilson
Wouldn't work. Shotgun shells spray in a cone shape.

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rblatz
If you are using shot, use a slug and it would be fine.

