Snowball Bow

Feel bored of throwing snow ball by hand? Try to build a snowball bow yourself!!! After reading this instructable, you will know how to build an unqiue and strong "weapon" when snowball fighting with your friends. This time, let me introduce a snowball bow which is easy to build and replicable.This project is one of the design projects of our school's engineering department. We made our own design used for snowball fight. You won't spend too much time on building process to get a brand new snow ball fight experience. Also, you don't have to prepare lots of materials and tools to get strated.

As shown in the figure, you need to prepare:

1. A Steel Bar

The one I was using is 42in long with 2 holes at the top and the bottom. You don't have to follow the exact length that I was using. Just make sure the length of steel bar is not too long or too short compared with your arm and height.)

2. Bungee cord

The one that I used for this project is 60in. After first build, I and my partner found that choosing a very short bungee cord compared to the length of steel bar to pursue a stronger elastic force would influence the operation when we testing it. In addition, the hook of bungee cord should be longer than the thickness of steel bar.

3. Cup

I used disposable cup. Actually, you can use any kinds of cup as long as it is light enough. Also, the size of cup you choose will decide the size of snowball that you will make for launch.

4. Cord

the cord will be made as a handle connected to the cup. Just make sure the length of the cord fits your hand and the cup.

5. TOOLS

A duct tape and a driller.

In this step, you need to drill 2 holes which are symmetrical to the bottom and top holes. If, there is no holes on your steel bar, you can mark central points and drill 4 hoels. Based on the length of your steel bar, the location of holes should be picked properly, not too far or too close from the ends.

Once you finished drilling process, you need to assemble your components. Here are the specific steps you need to follow.

1. Insert the hooks of bungee cord through the steel bar. After that, using duct tape to cover that parts in case the hooks is turning when pulling the bungee cord for launch.

2. Use duct tape to cover the inside and outside of cup to make the body of cup stronger. If you choose to use plastic cup or stronger one, you can skip this step.

3. Tape the cup onto the center of bungee cord. More specifically, the middle part of the cup should be touched to the central part of your bungeecord as shown in the picture. In the picture, I was not using cup for the first build, and the blue pouch is made up of fabric piece. After testing, I found the pouch is not stable to hold the snowball during launch, then we decided to use cup to replace the pouch, and it works good.

4. make a tape handle at the center of steel bar. This step is in order to keep you warm when you hold the steel bar outside.

5. tape the cord handle onto the cup. make sure the size of handle fits your hand.

Basically, you just need to put your snowball into the cup, pull your handle and launch it as shown in the picture.

In recommendation, you should wear long glove or thick-sleeves cloth because the bungee cord may hurt your arm and hand after you launch the snowball. Additionally, the arm that holds the steel bar should keep straight during operation in order to launch the snow ball accurately