The Zamor Shotgun
Entry posted by Iruini Nuva
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Yes, it really works (you don't have to read all of this 
)!
Structure:
This is pretty much a human sized version of a zamor launcher on steroids. It can launch four zamors at once and hit accurately at about a 15ft range. The shots spread about 3ft apart at that point. There were a couple challenges that I had to overcome.
1) The pressure that needed to be exerted. 4 Zamors take a several pound push to shoot. The structure had to be able to withstand both the pressure and the sudden release as the shots were fired. It ended up having 7 interlaced beams running through as the main sub-structure. On top of that, it had 5 beams distributing the pressure between the 4 launchers. These too, were interconnected to each other at many different points. Even with this complex setup, it took a while to get everything to the point where a strong shove wouldn't just blow the front off the model.
2) The size. It would be pretty simple to make a small shotgun about 3 inches long. But that isn't very cool, nor can it have nearly the same range. So I decided to enlarge it. This caused a number of problems. Axles aren't very good at holding up against pressure when they're long. They would have buckled and snapped if I had tried to shoot it with that design. That problem was what prompted me to interlace them to the extent that I did. After quite a few hours, I got it to the point where it would fire the bottom two launchers without any problems. The top half was a different story. With my hand under the gun, there was nothing to provide a counterpressure against the force exterted on the pins (remember, it takes a several pound push to fire this thing). The solution was fairly simple. I placed small extentions near the front of the gun. That way I could hold it from the bottom, but still support the top. You can these extensions in this picture. They're the pieces that my middle finger is on (just below the upper launcher). In the end, I was able to create a gun that could hold up against anything and could fire 100s of rounds consecutively without requiring any tweaks or repairs.
Firing:
To fire the gun, you press on the back end (where my hand is in the pic above, or immediately below the second gahlok shield in the others). The high pressure required to fire this had an unexpected benefit: Increased range. I was expecting this thing to shoot around 4-5 feet. It ended up doing 3-4 times that. Plus because of the way I had set it up to distribute the force, it had better accuracy, no errant shots. But that's enough description, I bet y'all want to see this thing.
Bottom View (shows a little of the structure)
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