Construction

Prototype Fabrication

     Unfortunately we were out of time to 3D Print or laser cut parts for our rail gun by the time we discovered we needed to. If we hadn't, we would have had much more success with our prototype, as much of our issues seemed to stem from limitations in human measuring.

     Anyway, we used a hacksaw to cut two 9x3" acrylic sheets out of a single sheet. If we had higher budget or for the  next prototype we will definitely use polycarbonate instead of acrylic - acrylic is a brittle polymer and there for likes to shatter. We went few quite a few sheets because it cracked in half while cutting. This is one of those situations we wish we had laser cut.

     The rails were two stacks of two 8.5x1x0.0625" aluminum beams. We drilled holes through each beam and the acrylic to attach the two materials with screws. For the next round these holes would be placed with a laser cutter to ensure parallelism of the rail system. 

     For the first two prototypes, the track was a wooden train set and the rails were straightened 12 gauge copper wire. The projectile was a similar 16 gauge copper wire to minimize weight. The partial failure of these prototypes could be partially attributed to the inability to create perfectly straight wire out of the material. If we pursue the transportation side of rail technology as was our original idea, a similar track would be constructed out of polycarbonate and aluminum or copper rails similar to in our final prototype would go around the track in the desired shape/loop. 

     The 12 gauge copper wire was connected to the wooden train track with the use of hot-melt adhesive from a glue gun, and we connected the power supply to the capacitors and the capacitors to the rails using solder (it was a hot system, meaning the projectile was a switch). The wires through the capacitors, connecting them in parallel, were also fused to the capacitors using solder to ensure no shortages.