Awesome Rubber Bands

It’s easy to find toy cars that are powered by rubber bands. On the other hand, it seems that nobody is making human-size vehicles that run on rubber band power. Joel Creates set out to solve this problem by replacing the engine in a lightweight Goblin kit car with an elastic-powered one. Like toy cars, it needs to be pulled back to store energy for a ride.

Launching cars quickly on a drag strip depends on horsepower, grip, and driver reaction time. That’s not quite the case in this video from WhistlinDiesel. For his latest bit of automotive jackassery, the car-destroying YouTuber purchased 7000 feet of industrial-strength rubber tubing and used it to see how much boost the slingshot could add.

We’ve seen guitars with lots of strings. This is the first time we’ve heard one where some strings are rubber bands. You might think they wouldn’t produce a very satisfying sound, but they play surprisingly well in the hands of a guitarist as talented as Bernth. It helps that he kept the original metal strings in the middle of his Ibanez acoustic guitar.

Rubber bands are one of those ubiquitous things that we don’t really give a second thought to. But behind every rubber band is a factory and a team of skilled workers. Process X takes us inside Kyowa’s manufacturing facility to see how they transform blocks of natural rubber into millions of these useful office supplies every week.

Think Flight wanted to see how much they could scale up the design of a standard rubber band airplane. Besting the record recently set by Project Air, this single-engine rubber band flyer has a 16-foot wingspan. It took him roughly seven months of experimentation and flight testing to achieve his final lightweight design.

The S adds to his arsenal with an impressive-looking cardboard machine gun that can rapidly fire numerous rubber bands. It has a motor drive mechanism that turns a pair of gears when its trigger is pulled, sequentially releasing 16 rubber bands in just a few seconds. We wonder if he could double or triple up on rubber bands or if that would jam it.

Guitar strings are usually made from nylon or metal wire. Musician Bernth wanted to hear what an acoustic guitar might sound like when its strings are replaced with rubber bands. The low-frequencies sound more like a bass than a guitar, but they worked well enough that he recorded a song called Elasticity with them.

A typical rubber band airplane is maybe a foot long. Project Air took the idea of a rubber band-powered plane and supersized it to create a lightweight foam board and carbon fiber flyer with an 11-foot wingspan. The trickiest part was getting its eight propellers to all start at the same time.

Robotime’s flat-pack wood kit gives you everything you need to assemble your own working rubber band shotgun. It features a simulated pump-action mechanism and can fire multiple bands in sequence. Includes wooden soldier targets and plenty of rubber bands.

It’s pretty easy to find toy airplanes that are powered by a rubber band. On the other hand coming up with something that replicates the dual rotor movements of a helicopter is more of a challenge. Maker Peter Sripol managed to create one. Download the 3D printed part designs on Thingiverse and watch the build video here.

Author Lance Akiyama’s DIY book teaches you how to use popsicle sticks, paint stirrers, PVC pipe, clothespins, and other household objects to create 19 different rubber band and hydraulic-powered weapons and siege engines.

Matthew Davis’ Arcus is a 3D-printable rubber band gatling gun. Its unorthodox appearance is more than just for show. Unlike most rubber band guns, the Arcus uses the energy from the rubber bands being shot out to rotate the barrels and continue the barrage. Grab the 3D models and directions on Instructables.

This wouldn’t be the first time we saw a machine gun that fires rubber bands, but this time out, we’ve got The Q showing us step-by-step how he built his from cardboard, wood, string, hot glue, and popsicle sticks. If you’d rather not DIY, you can buy a wood one here.

The next time you launch a rubber band, watch this video as a reminder of the manual labor that goes into the production of these stretchy office supplies, which start as the extract of a rubber tree, which is dyed, dipped onto rods, peeled into tubes, then cut into thin slices.

The guys from Fast, Furious and Funny hook up with Vsauce to see if they can lift a car using ordinary rubber bands. Sure, they use a tiny Nissan Micra, but it’s still an impressive feat.

Because the classroom can be a warzone at times, designer Sebastian Bergne’s Bandit Ruler is the mischievous student’s best friend, doing double duty as a rubber band launcher. Use responsibly.

Instead of creating scary rubber guns, Andy Mangold went for a classy, old west look for The Gentleman’s Rubber Bandit, although we’re not sure if the Old West already had such fancy fonts.

Some guy in Japan has taken it upon himself to make the most badass rubber band guns you’ve ever seen. One even has a laser sight. You do not want to be on the business-end of one of these.