rail guns

Im looking to help a friend out with a science project, he aims to create a

rail gun
coil gun

using of course low end voltages, small scale, school science project appropiate etc.

Im looking for "How to" videos or websites. SO far, most of the youtube videos or websites are written by MIT grads, or are simply ppl just showing off, and not telling how to..

what we have as how a rail gun is made and operated is

take 2 conducive strips of metal, sandwich them between plexi glass, and close to each other but not touching, one is + the other is - and when you put a conducive object in between the 2 rails, violent opposition forces the projectile out? (this is largely what seems to be the picture from a few you tube videos).. anyway, thanks...

 

hmm, nothing personal, but are you sure you arent confusing things here.

below please find what a rail guns is,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIF1bXOQ31Q

he is using a quarter or a little aluminum foil bit as a projectile, i see no explosion.

as far as the whole 2 liter.. perhaps the reason they faced charges is they were doing this stuff in residential pools, where your next door neighbor might not be able to differentiate between "harmless co2 reaction and bomb detonation"

also, perhaps it was a city ordinance or a state one? ill take care of my local laws..

as far as hands of the terrorist- we are FARRR to late for that mentality on the net.....you can walk into any trade school class and learn wayyyy to much info that is good for the good guys, and good for the bad guys to unfortunately...

 

They are a bit more complex then plexi glass metal rails and high voltage. I would imagine a small coil gun or tesla coil would make for a better small project compared to a working rail gun. Either way www.powerlabs.org is a good source of info on the topic. But they appear to be down at the moment.

 

Future weapons did a good show on them a few years ago regarding the military aspect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqlTXwLG40

They are still vastly underpowered to do any real damage,the projectile in the video must only weigh half a pound its only aluminium and how would you point a gun that's eight times bigger than that? You'd practically have to point the full ship,it can be done with hydraulics but would it be practical?

Even then you only have a small payload,a small missile can already carry a 100kg payload over 100km and you don't have to point them,I'm sure a few hundred missiles would take up a lot less room than the capacitor bank needed to power one of those things too,I would love to see them become practical though.

Your biggest problem medieval is the power storage,that's what hinders all electromagnetic guns,I've made small capacitor banks like in that video but it can get expensive unless you can get disposable cameras for free or cheap capacitors from somewhere.

So I'd start there,work out how your gonna charge and store your power,you may want to have a go at making your own capacitors,it really is a lot more simple than you'd imagine just a couple of sheets of foil with some insulator in between then sandwich lots of them together,you can make it as big as you wish with as many layers as you want for practically free.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvqvRNt4fBU&feature=related

I guess what kind of beast you want to make determines how far you go :-D