Category Archives: Uncategorized

Blog moved to NerfHaven

This blog has moved to NerfHaven and is now titled Nerf Engineering. That is all.

NY Times Magazine Interview

I was interviewed for the New York Times Magazine about my other toy gun hobby: homemade water guns. I haven’t worked on homemade water guns for several years now, but I’ll eventually get back into the hobby. Edit: To be clear, I am not Lonnie Johnson. He was interviewed first in the article. The section […]

Drag coefficient of Nerf darts

The drag coefficient tells you how much drag affects an object moving in a fluid. A higher drag coefficient means that the drag force is larger, which’ll slow down an object more. Lower drag darts will have more range and travel faster. What’s the drag coefficient of a Nerf dart? Many tests have been done […]

Goals for the end of 2011

I’ve been too busy to accomplish what I want to in this hobby, but I do have a few plans for the end of this year: I will write a NerfHaven article about misconceptions in Nerf physics. I have already written a few things along these lines. The goal here is to make a summary […]

Improving accuracy and precision

I wrote a long post at NerfHaven on improving accuracy and precision of guns back in April.

I’m not entering Ryan’s contest

To answer a question that I’m sure will be asked, I will not be entering Ryan’s contest. I do not have easy access to anything resembling a machine shop or much money to buy components with. This is unfortunate. I have, however, explained my ideas elsewhere. Others are free to implement these ideas as they […]

Approximate expansion diameter of latex tubing

I previously wrote about how to estimate the expansion diameter of latex tubing, but I made no measurements to verify that the formula I suggested, where is the unexpanded inner diameter of the tube and is the unexpanded tube wall thickness, was accurate. Back in 2010, I made some measurements for tests that were aborted […]

Next two months

Sorry all, but I’ll be basically inaccessible for the next two months. At the moment I’m working at NIST with Randy McDermott and I’m staying at a hotel with terrible internet. I’ll see what I can do on weekends.

Nerf Engineering forum

The Nerf Engineering forum is now open. I’m receptive to suggestions, so let me know at the forum if you have any ideas, especially with regard to its organization.

Temporary NerfHaven archive

I have made a temporary NerfHaven archive for those who wish to browse threads while NH is down. Also, would anyone be interested in a small forum for this blog? I am thinking I’d like to discuss some topics not typically covered at Nerf forums, like, for example, “concept” threads (where the merits of a […]