Wrist rocket: worlds fastest disc launcher 

If you'd like to help make future projects like this possible please consider supporting them / me on Patreon at patreon.com/stuffmadehere. A big thanks to those who already support the projects, not only for the support, but also for being awesome on the discord :)

I’m glad it took a machine to beat my record 😄 awesome video!

8 weeks just for the amazing project? And how long for the video? 28+ min and not a single second of boring content. I'd guess another 100 hours, fantastic!

17:45 "I couldn't have hit more things if I had tried"... The honesty, backed up by the sound of all those things, bouncing around in the background...bravo, sir.

I love how safety tests are done with the helmet that has a huge whole in it since it was originally designed to stop a ball and not to stop a frisby

Every time you release a video, I breath a sigh of relief. “Okay, he’s still alive. Now, let’s see what almost killed him!”

As soon as it launched, I was like "It's not spinning nearly fast enough." Glad you mentioned that! I look forward to a V2!

I really like how open you are about the problems you run into and the thought process to adjust, adjust, tweak, fix, try again.

How long till he realizes he just made a way over engineered clay pigeon thrower.. in all reality though amazing video. Love it

I like how you make a socket to remove the valve from the gas cylinder. A very small part of the video, but I appreciated it.

Fellow disc golf noob here! Solid execution dude. Thanks for convincing me to not make that disc singshot

I’m glad you have ALL the skills to not only make a video, but to brake down the step by step Process of the mechanics behind your Invention! You inspire more than you realize.

The throwing angle makes a massive difference in the discs flight. If you make it throw on a hyzer angle i think you'll get a nice distance out of this thing.

Suggestion: Your disc needs more spin to make it more stable and less likely to invert. You may want to look into clay pigeon throwers and how they launch them with spin and enough force to go a good distance without breaking the fragile pigeon.

I feel like you'll eventually end up building fallout style power armor to permanently get around problems like "this will break my arm" or "I won't have a head if this goes wrong"

I love how the solution to the disc holder problem was basically just to make a hand analog that holds it in almost the same way a human would.

Watching these videos while I study for finals, studying mechanical engineering has really made me appreciate the hard work engineers put into making systems safe.

20:38 I think that might be the most important plywood shield you've ever set up

What I learned at work: Our cranes have 4x the safety. So if it is rated for 4 tonnes it actually can lift 16 tonnes but due to safety regulations it will switch itself off if there's more than 4 tonnes on there. AND THIS GUY RUNS THE AIR PISTON AT 6X OUTSIDE ITS SAFETY REGULATION. Subscribe to this madman!

"I'm really tempted to create a solid metal disk, but it's very deadly" DAWG AS IF THIS WHOLE PROJECT ISNT DEADLY ENOUGH--

If you make a version 2.0 you should angle it down a good 30 degrees, if not more. The torque you’re putting out is going to turn any disc over, so counteract that by putting it on hyzer so it flips up to flat, not flip over into a barrel roll. Look up hyzer flip. I would also suggest using a new disc- the fresh plastic makes it more stable and less resistant to turning over. Smashing it into the walls, boards, melons, etc break in the plastic and make it much softer or “weaker.” Actually, just get Simon on the next video. He knows everything there is to know about dg, and it’ll probably triple your views too.

That's a really complicated and impressive clay pigeon launcher you've got there.

Would love to see a part 2! Release angle is essential in controlling how much a disc wants to flip during flight. You are releasing a disc on an anhyzer and it just continues to flip all the way over. You can compensate for this by changing the angle to start on a hyzer, and it will flip up to a more stable flight. Called a “hyzer flip.” Spin also helps, but you covered how this could improve it :)

Speaking on your final comment in the video on learning and taking the initiative, I just started finishing my high school education at 25 after a long illness, I am very excited to see where life takes me!

I just love the way you include all the mistakes in your videos and your wifes opinions are so great! I love your videos and have watched them all over and over again

“I don’t have the right tool…” *cue the montage where you simply just make the right tool.* So badass 😂

Thank you for this fun video

I love you dude! I started losing passion for engineering in college, but you gave me the passion back. You inspire people bro! Never stop entertaining us 🤙

It’s amazing that you made a backboard that will move anywhere to catch a basketball in a 3D space, and you seemed to have less struggle figuring that out than creating a machine that throws a frisbee. I envy your skills, resources, time, and knowledge to do both.

Hey Shane, passionate disc golf flight enthusiast here! There are a few reasons why your disc is behaving that way: 1. You're correct in that more spin = more better. Spin not only makes the disk fly A LOT further because of increased glide, it also mitigates any off-axis torque introduced by the machine, which will cause a disc to want to turn to the right. 2. As others have said, if your disc has this lack of spin and increased off-axis torque, you will want to give it the max opportunity to combat this tendancy to turn right by mirroring your release angle. But if it's doing barrel rolls to the right, this won't be enough, which is why, 4. You need the appropriate disc that has an absurd tendency to the left to counteract this. This disc would have a high speed rating (13-15) and maximum overstability (turn rating of 0 or greater). Examples are Innova Max / Ape, Discraft Nuke OS, or Latitude 64 Stilleto) If you want, hit me up and I can send you a few of these. Great vid man!

I’ve been playing disc golf for about 7 years now. The motion of the thrower looks good in my opinion but the angle at which your final set up is position is the problem with your distance. Let me explain. Throwing a disc right handed back hand (rhbh) naturally makes the disc want to turn left in its flight because physics. When throwing rhbh super hard it wants to turn over, as you explained, in a clockwise rotation when looking at the flight path of the disc. To compensate for this players will throw the disc from a hyzer release. You can look up hyzer vs anhyzer to have a visual aid but essentially a hyzer is the angle that the disc naturally wants to end at in its flight path and anhyzer is the opposite. Long story short, throwing the disc on a hyzer will help compensate for the clockwise rotation of the disc when it wants to turn over. Therefore you want to have the machine start the disc path at the same angle as this -> / so when it turns over it flips up to flat -> - instead of starting from flat and turning over to -> \. Does that make sense. I would love to chat with you more about this if you’d like because I think your machine has the potential to break the record without making your own disc or doing major modifications. Just need a little disc golf technique in the swing! Other things that will help to counter turning over is a heavy disc (175g at least and buying a high stability disc. Aka, you want the 3rd number on the disc flight path numbers to be high, at least a 3. I hope all of this helps, I’d love to see a follow up video. Good luck!

I admire your persistence, great stuff keep up the hard work!

I took college algebra, I just could not get until I had a use for it ! I needed a practical application, that I could visualize, in my mind ! That's when I realized, educators in this field, were teaching us wrong, to get someone to understand, they would make their own jobs easier if they, would give an example of it's uses ! Being able to visualize this was a game changer for me ! Cool video, I think your mech arm needs to be hand held to be a total success ! I know a lot of your time was spent figuring out how to do this ! Just subscribed, looking forward to interesting content !

The cancelling forces mechanism was sort of like attaching another gun with the barrel facing the shooter to cancel out the recoil.

This actually does have commercial viability as well if you were interested. Companies literally just go throw the discs they make and make up all those numbers on the disc. It's pretty hard for a human to consistently throw the same speed and same angle over and over again. Disc manufacturers would definitely be interested in something that can throw consistently like this.

I like that you show the failures and how you overcome them and move on.

Stuff Made Here: How can I protect my head when launching this disk? Helmet with a disk sized gap near eyes: Pick me! Pick me! In all honesty though, it is inspiring to see the thought process and hard work you put into your projects. God bless!

A rotational railgun mechanism for this might also be worth a try. May launch at the speed of sound, may tear itself to pieces. Either way, it would be fun to watch.

I swear to god you have the best videos on RU-vid how can one be comical as all hell yet so smart and genius

15:23 i like how you tethered the metal part through the carbon fiber just like F1 does with their tires so if the suspension breaks they dont fly off and bounce into the public or the marshalls, or other driving cars.

Super cool project! I wonder what would have happened if you set the machine to throw it on a hyzer angle instead of flat. When pros are throwing at fast speeds they will angle the disc sometimes up to 40 degrees to counteract the flipping and keep it flying flat for longer during the flight. Can't wait to see what you do with the next project!

17:43 the sound of sheer chaos and you getting up all calm like “huh that’s weird” got me

I love that you effectively made a pneumatic transistor-transistor amplifier setup (little valve drives big valve)!~

17:41 the sound of that thing hitting every object in your garage is hilarious :D

“It will either break your arm, or kill you.”

I’m still waiting for you to program an oncology (tumor zapping) microwave to perfectly reheat a slice of apple pie evenly - instead of making it very hot at the tip and cold at the crust.

New subscriber here! So glad I found your channel, i watched the forgery robot which was fantastic, now I get to binge watch all your videos! Keep up the amazing content 😊

13:20 Imagine that death message, “killed by insane disc contraption”

You need to have it fire on an extreme hyzer angle. You’re shooting it on an anhyzer angle, which is no good when it’s firing them so fast. Also, try a “Tilt” disc. It’s the most overstable (wants to flip right the least) disc out there.

“That’s the basic design” *shows a very complex design

Just finding your channel. I really like how you do stuff. This project might be something that you could market so flight numbers can be standardized. It could be worth the effort

Hunting frisbee! Great way to teach us about physics, engineering and design! Thanks for all your time and explanation!

You don't know how much something like this is needed in disc golf, with technologies like this we can actually test discs and put them on a more uniform standard regarding flight numbers etc.

"This disk IS regulation" "This part is too big to fail" "... which is a perfect use for this valve that I thought was useless" Gold! Pure gold!

It’s amusing to see you having the problem with the valve. Some years back, I built a parachute mortar for the drogue chute of a sounding rocket. We used 12g CO2 cartridges as you find them in airsoft pistols. We basically punctured them when mounting them and a solenoid would let the CO2 flow to the mortar. During ground testing we used a pretty chunky valve that drew a lot of current and it worked like a charm. Our chief engineer then wanted to me to use a different valve, using less power (power budget and all). New valve came, we tested it and suddenly the parachute didn’t reach the correct ejection speed. Took me a while to figure out: the previously used valve had an orrifice of 1.5 mm diameter, the new one only measured 1 mm. By the looks of it, it actually was the same valve that you got there.

I absolutely love your videos. You and mark rober have actually thought me a lot

21:52 my god that looks dangerous, Shane. The best way to avoid personal injury is to let someone else do it . We need more videos, don't get injured!

It’s crazy, the engineering you do is on another level! You actually solve really difficult (although whimsical) problems! Keep up the good work!

Wow. You are having too much fun. I'm glad that you eventually got to the gyroscopic effect.

I had to pause the video and wait for my laughing to subside when he said "I couldn't have hit more things if I tried", with the perfect little crash tinkle at the end.

From what I could tell, the discs launched in the field were being released on an anhyzer angle, like clock arms pointing at 10 and 4. This would cause highly stable distance drivers to flip over almost immediately. Releasing from the opposite angle (hyzer) should allow the disc to flip up, fly flat, and then return to it’s original angle when falling. This would be like clock arms pointing at 2 and 8. This is the case for the machine, which launches the discs like a right-handed backhand, but would be different for other throws. Hope this helps!

This is the crossover I have literally obsessed over for years. You need something like a Flick, Tilt, or Latitude 64 Stiletto to stand up to speeds like those. Some people have even modified discs by reshaping with heat to make even more stable molds than any that are currently sold. Flattening the flight plate and outer rim into a single plane can cause some incredibly stable discs. Perhaps keeping the flipping edge angled down in a hyzer release would help get a better flight path as well. If you need any tips on disc design I can give some insight to how each design element can affect flight, but I find it's mostly intuitive if you're overly familiar with free bodies and basic classical mechanics.

Man I just found your channel and I’m HOOOOOOOKED you follow the same format as one of my favourite blacksmiths Alec Steele and boy this fish stuck on the line 😅

my joy is seeing your joy....great fun watching your content

I like how this thing went through a quasi-natural evolution process - it shed unnecessary parts, but there are some vestigial reminders that point to those parts existing in previous generations

Wow, this seems so challenging! On your final attempt, the disc came out of the slinger on “anhyzer” angle (disc golf term) which may be making the discs flip over faster. I’m curious what would happen if you released them on “hyzer” (angled down opposite the direction they flip over to)? That may help give you more distance! The pros certainly take advantage of that- wind can also cause discs to flip faster. So a tail wind may help again make the disc flip less and go further? Combine those two thoughts and MAYBE everything will break again somehow

Your acting is pretty convincing, but the real MVP is the lady who plays your wife on this show. She's definitely the best character.

I kept thinking I was going to skip to the end but each new problem and solution had me hooked and waiting in anticipation to see if the solution worked lol

Amazing work. Your problem with turn can possibly be fixed by putting the arm on a "hyzer" angle - having the left side of the disc angeled downward. The speed will naturally make the disc "stand up" and go to the right. In disc golf we call this hyzer flipping.

This was really fascinating to see all the variations and problems and engineer has to overcome! Great work!!

You truly are the try and try again! Never give up till it's right!

This was impressive to say the least. Well done good sir.

16:59 "give an engineer a toy and a box of tools and he'll make you a deadly weapon" - Azero

This video was 30 mins of watching someone who has never seen a clay pigeon launcher try to re-invent the clay pigeon launcher but in the most complicated overly engineered way possible. Glad you got it working.

God bless you mister. What a delight your videos are.

Have you seen the Mythbusters episode about the deadly throwing card? Jamie had the ingenious idea of using a very high RPM wheel to shoot the card. Also created alot of spin on the card.

suggestion: generally throwing with the outside edge lower will be much less likely for it to flop to the right similarly to what happened there, instead it will stabilise and go much further.

Oh man it was so hilarious to watch this video. Love your channel, your humour, your grumpy wife...

The absolute chaos that happened at 17:40 sounds like a pinball player racking up a high score, and I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what the frisbee was doing. I just wish I could've seen how many objects you managed to hit with it.

He back baby, editing until past night to give us a video

The dead cantaloupes testify to the peril of head/neck level experimentation. Glad you lived through this solution in search of a problem.

Love all the engineering. I've used a clay bird thrower for shooting practice and that's where I would have started. The long throwing arm gives the disc a surface to roll and get better rotation before launch. Probably would be a heavy design.

As a disc golf player there's a few things you're missing. 1. Speed rating on the disc. You need 14 which is the max. The picture you showed was speed 9. Maybe you did but just didn't show it. 2. Discs tend to flip over to the left with a negative TURN rating and to the right with a positive rating. Once you know that the disc wants to turn, you then compensate by tilting it slightly the opposite way. I can see it's launching slighty slanted which is causing them to turn prematurely. Look up the term hyser flip to see what I'm talking about. You'll go so much further with just 2 minor adjustments. Oh and with 8.7 million views I'm sure you could have got some sort of compensation from a disc company sponsor. Anyway, love the effort and humor!

Bro you overlooked the disc shaped eye cutout in your helmet! But the build was seriously awesome.

Your comment about “spin” at 23:30 is something I had been wondering about from the very beginning. None of your early designs seem to provide that type of energy as the disc launches. You are basically ( but not entirely) throwing a knuckle ball. 🙂 Your ideas and execution are fascinating and I applaud your efforts. Thanks for sharing. Oh, I entirely love your wife’s deadpan sense of humor. She’s hilarious! You two are a great team!

I just realized that this problem is basically the same one that clay pigeon traps (throwers) are made for. C&rsenal has a fun series of videos called "It's a Trap!" where they go into a bunch of vintage clay pigeon traps with different mechanisms. I wonder if some of those could be cool inspiration for another version of this?

Probably won't see this comment, but awesome video! I spend a lot of time around discs and have thought a lot about creating a machine that can "throw" discs with consistency. My thoughts regarding an arm powered device for faster and farther throws would be to attach a mechanical arm to the arm and forearm, hinged, of course, where the elbow is, and geared to have a faster output than the input. The mechanical arm would extend completely across the body, while your arm only goes back about halfway. When throwing, the gearing will make the mechanical arm move faster and "catch up" to your arm at full extension in the throw.

The funny thing is, there's a weapon in Xenoblade 3 which is _literally_ just this. I think that's incredible.

0:41 "This ended up being my most labor-intensive project, ever." Watching your videos, it looks like you could say this about all of your projects :) 7:47 It looks exactly like transistors in Darlington configuration. I love when electronics and pneumatics are so similar! You don't realize how much trial and error went into designing and engineering the technology we have, until you try to build something yourself. What seems obvious afterwards, like the wind shield for the disc, can be easily overlooked because of all the other potential problems. I really like that you don't just show the finished product, but instead as you said it "the journey is the destination".

14:13 "I think you know the drill at this point"...shows a drill. I love it.

youve basically made a precision--engineered pneumatically-actuated frisbee atlatl; fascinating that some of the oldest forms of force multiplication can still be applied to the modern era, in their own way.

This was a great idea! I would love to see you beat the distance record with it. I am a disc golfer and here are some things I noticed. So, you pointed out that you are using over stable disc this is good to reduce roll over like you are getting. The launcher is releasing the disc at an anhyzer angle which in turn will have the disk roll over. The max speed of current disc's is 14-15 I suggest using one of those that is over stable last two number 0,4 and releasing at more of a hyzer angle. The power behind the arm will force the disc flat and you will get more distance. Hope this helps would really love to see this succeed!

None oh his videos have less than 5 millions views. His content quality is outstanding. This guy is dangerously genius. He's the most complete engineer i've ever seen on my RU-vid watch history

Love the never give up attitude 👏🏻

I really laughed at the conclusion of your disk grabber, imitate how humans throw it is the best way.

i think with this, we're one step closer to having those classic bionicle disc launchers for real people. what a world we live in

As soon as you did the “hey wife” part, I knew that a skinny rod was coming. Still made me chuckle though.

You are FUNNY with your movie references. I catch them in your other videos, too, but this one is EPIC, and of course, it's from Office Space... 12:20 "Any mass that can't tell me what it would say it does here is gone." ROFL That's from the great John C. McGinley, when his character, Bob, says, "What wouldja say... ya DO here?" Anyone who hasn't seen this movie, SEE IT! It might be the funniest movie ever made, or at least ties with Blazing Saddles.

10:10 Im just a little bit proud of myself for thinking of that torque force the second you separated those counter rotating arms like that back around minute 3 :D (then again maybe it was because I had already seen the wood snap in the intro, who knows)

I've been playing Disc golf since I was in high school and I love how you demonstrated how its not about power that gets the distance. My teachers always told me that its about your form and how much spin you give the disc. They always said you can put as much power as you want but if you don't follow through with your whole body it won't go as far.