With its Rubber Band Machine Gun, or RBmG for short, XYZbot hopes to bring a new level of firepower to living room warfare. The wooden, battery-powered gatling gun is capable of unleashing devastation at a rate of 800 rounds (well, rubber bands) per minute and, should its crowd funding campaign prove successful, it'll ship as a build-it-yourself kit you can put together in half an hour.
XYZbot says would-be gunsmiths will require only screwdrivers and pliers to assemble their ultimate weapons. Thoughtfully, the laser-cutting of the various bits is done in the factory in advance. There are some electronics to tinker with, and XYZbot reckons this is a good way to teach older children about motors.
The RBmG takes 64 rubber bands, though with care, XYZBot says it can be double loaded with 128.
Ol' painless
As Mike noted in his Firewheel article back in 2005, such launches will inevitably prompt discussions as to the wisdom of letting children play with toy guns. Judging by the video, the RBmG fires the bands at a relatively modest power, though presumably this will depend on the size and tension of the rubber bands loaded. XYZbot tells us that the kit will come with sufficient rubber bands of suitable size to fully load the gun. That aside, XYXbot emphasizes that this shouldn't be used to fire rubber bands at other human beings, and that the toy is aimed at children aged 12 and over.
In its Kickstarter campaign, XYZbot is asking for US$49 per kit, or $59 if you want one ahead of holiday season. The company thinks theirs is the only fully automatic rubber band gun available for under $100.
The campaign video embedded below is worth a quick look.
Sources: XYZbot, Kickstarter
