Glowing Projectile for Night Flights

[Mountain Storm]

[youtube][/youtube]

Flight vids uploading

It's NUCLEAR

[geardog32]

I watched the shots of it, man that thing is all over the place. Do you have a diagram or something of how you made it?

[jrrdw]

You should move the camera off to a distance and get a wide angle view of the night shot. It's kinda tough to get a good view filming from behind. Nice work on the glow stick canister.

[Crna Legija]

Is it just a glow stick in some plastic or your own glow in the dark mix?looks pretty bright.

[Technician1002]

My video camera is not sensitive enough to video glow sticks at night. A glow stick in a bottle of water makes a nice glow in the dark round. If you use hot water, they glow brighter but don't last as long.

We did this one year at the church camp. During campfire, I rounded up some bored kids and took them to the field on the other side of a row of trees. We loaded an orange glow stick and launched it. The adults heard the noise and saw the streak in the sky. A couple came to investigate, but due to the location of the gate to the field, but the time they arrived we already reloaded and was pumping up the cannon again.

They watched as we shot it skyward (less running to retrieve it) and the kids took off out in the field. The parents watched it go up and start to come back down and commented "It didn't go off"

I said, "No it didn't"

"But the kids!"

I said, "They are watching it"

The projectile bounced on the ground near the kids. the excited parent said "The Kids! It didn't go off"

I said, " They will bring it back"

Soon the glowing orange projectile was lofted and brought back.. I thought the parents were going to pass out.

When it was brought back, I said " I would have been very surprised if it did go off"

[Mountain Storm]

It's just a glow stick in a little acrylic whatsit I put together.

It survived a bunch of flights.

It's not stable in flight. I need to work on that some more.

It was just me and the boy. No way to set up for a shot...But still fun.

Main thing is the projectile was easy to see and retrieve at night so it gave us an excuse to "go on a mission" well after his usual bed time:)

[youtube][/youtube]

It also glows through the PVC of the cannon and lights up the chamber for spray which is fun as well.


I was going to make some elaborate fins and then I realized the tube was so large that the fins are only about 5/16" wide so why bother?


Made entirely from left overs and scraps so no choice on colors or tube diameter...ideally Fluorescent green everything would be cool with a tube ID exactly the same as the glow stick OD. that would allow for wider fins.


For me (an the boy) part of the fun is looking at it in the dark...


We pretended it was a nuclear device

[Lentamentalisk]

That isn't fin stabilized. It is fin-destabilized. Putting fins above the center of gravity will actually cause it to tumble. The fins should really only be on the rear 1/3 or so of the projectile, and absolutely should stop at the center of gravity.

Still, a very cool projectile. I remember a while ago making a glow in the dark sabot mixing some high quality glow powder with epoxy. Very cool results!

[Mountain Storm]

Thanks for the info. As it it turns out I moved up to a 2" bore so I can make another unit in a different caliber and get it right this time. One problem I found with projectiles that do fly straight is they tend to disappear forever I made a few with fins on the end and was hard pressed to retrieve them in broad daylight...the glow really helps.

I hear you can make your own glow juice from mountain dew and a little Hydrogen Peroxide...I think I saw a tutorial on it somewhere. I'd lake to make a "leaker" that leaves and airborn trail of glowing mist behind it but can't figure out exactly how to make that happen.

[tony48]

I might have to do some research on this "leaker" idea because it sounds awesome

[Crna Legija]

lol the pic of your putting it in the barrel, looks like yor removing the fuel rod in a nuclear power plant

[clemsonguy1125]

Nice projectile, the whole mountain dew YouTube thing was a hoax unfortunately.