DIY NERF Sentry Gun Requires The Gun, A Motor, And A Laptop

Planning on bringing up your NERF gun game this summer and are simply stuck for what to do now that you've got the NERF Vulcan at home? Tired of actually pulling the trigger yourself? This week the folks at Instructables have decided it's high time NERF got automatic and made with the conjuring: full on rapid-fire motion-tracking toy projectile firing the likes of which won't be cheap, but won't produce regret, either.

This beast is actually surprisingly simple to construct. The main component is, of course, the NERF Vulcan – a machine-gun amalgamation of plastic and "that can't possibly be a kids toy" greatness. The Vulcan, also known as the Nerf N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Blaster, will cost a cool $200 right out of the box, so you need to understand immediately that this sentry requires dedication and quite a bit of saved-up allowance – or well-placed tuition funds in you're in higher learning, of course.

Under the gun you've got a plain ol' rectangular block of wood – necessary thickness included, of course, and a whole mess of ball bearings, screws, nuts, and wood glue. Another rather key piece to this puzzle is a Arduino Uno.

The folks at Arduino are known for their massive amounts of effort in the miniature computer board universe, creating such lovely bits and pieces as the Esplora open source controller and spawning such creations as a DIY augmented reality eyepatch and Google's own Adtuino-based Android Open Accessories.

This sentry gun works with a webcam as well, controlling the Arduino board and the gun in turn with a laptop. The whole arrangement can be controlled with a joystick or a gaming controller as well – it's all up to the skill level of the creator!

Of course the creator of this monster, Instructables' BrittLiv, makes it all look so easy. Any sort of control of a toy gun that already rapid-fires bullets of plastic from its body given an upgrade to be automatic should be treated with such reverence and respect as warned by the creator: "Please do not attempt this mod unless you are convinced that you will be able to do it; otherwise you might destroy your gun."

Now we've only to see how well this machine fares against the Parrot AR.Drone attacking from above. The war is on!