btrettel's Nerf blogI’ve started organizing my writings and thoughts on Nerf ballistics into a set of notes (link corrected). Readers of my blog might be interested. For the moment my notes are very rough and incomplete. I’ll update the PDF as I make changes. I’d appreciate any feedback, especially corrections and ideas. Edit (2012-10-02): I’ve removed the […]
I wrote a technical paper about solving these equations and made some conclusions for design. I have fully solved the flat-fire case given that the x velocity stays above a certain number (and it generally will). (Original link broken: My newer notes contain that paper and more.) The take-home message is pretty simple: Keep kinetic […]
This blog post is relatively math heavy and it serves mostly as notes for my own use. I will assume some familiarity with differential calculus and ordinary differential equations. I also will assume some familiarity with the basic equations that govern the motion of Nerf darts after they leave the barrel. Yesterday I had an […]
Do you believe most Nerf darts can be made more stable by spinning? If so, this challenge is for you! The challenge is simple: Provide objective and statistically significant evidence that spinning darts improves stability, precision, or range. Some notes Rifling barrels for Nerf has already been thoroughly debunked. To say it in brief, the […]
By making analogies with real guns, some Nerfers have proposed that rifled barrels may be beneficial for Nerf blasters. But is this true? I will examine the two most popular claimed benefits of rifling, that rifling increases range and improves accuracy, and conclude that rifling as implemented thus far has had no significant effect on […]