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While not entirely practical, there’s something about the idea of throwing knives with deadly accuracy, in a way that will turn a home invader into a virtual pincushion, that seems really cool. This amazing gadget does the job all by itself at the pull of a trigger and it’s a good thing they aren’t real easy to come by.
Robots can throw knives
While it sounds like something out of science fiction, a prototype is already in use, built by an amateur. The first thing Quint, of the YouTube channel Quint BUILDs, figured out is that a robot can throw knives a whole lot better than a human.
He didn’t re-invent the terminator, his machine is a specialist which can be carried around by a human. It’s really good at what it does, too.
If you ever tried to stick a blade in a target like Steven Seagal in an action movie, the first thing you learn is that knives are really difficult things to fling properly. Unless you’re either special forces or a ninja, most of the time any part of the dang thing will thump except the point. It can be done, with a whole lot of practice. From the same distance and angle every time.
After you spend a few years mastering that, you can move on to moving targets at various distances. Or, you can build a gadget to do the tricky part for you.
The first thing Quint will tell you is don’t try this at home. Nobody want’s to get sued if things get out of hand or go wrong. As Gizmodo points out, this basement dweller has “built one of the most impressively terrifying pieces of amateur engineering we’ve ever seen.”
It flings knives into the target with such laser and radar guided accuracy the point goes solidly thunk into the target each and every time. If someone breaks into a home with one of these they don’t stand a chance.
You need some basic skills
Not everyone can whip up one of these in their garage. There are lots of folks who can if they try, though. “Quint decided that brute force engineering was a better alternative to diligent practice.” He pondered the problem for a while and went to work on a solution.
A “handheld launcher that uses high-performance servo motors, solenoids, custom 3D-printed components, and some heavy batteries to hurl throwing knives with the right amount of spin so they hit the mark and stick every single time.”
A computer can do the math a lot faster than humans realize. “To allow the launcher to work from varying distances, the launcher even employs a LiDAR sensor that’s used to measure how far away the target is and adjust its green targeting laser appropriately.”
It’s downright amazing. “It appears to work almost flawlessly, launching knives from a magazine as quickly as the machine can reset itself and Quint can pull the trigger.”
All you need is a box of nice sharp knives and you become instant walking death. Obviously nobody wants to see one of these in action at someplace like a shopping mall.
It’s not hard to imagine that DARPA already has a much more advanced version and theirs probably IS a reinvention of the terminator. An automatic knife throwing system is probably only one of the android soldiers’ onboard arsenal.
