One of the best things about playing Team Fortress 2 is being an engineer and setting up automated turrets to desecrate your enemies. You can run around and collect parts and materials to repair turrets, and let the automated machines rack up player kills. I’m sure I’m not the only one that can see the benefits of a turret like that.

Thanks to Britt Liv Ulrike Michelsen, a German chemical and biological engineering student, everyone can now reap the benefits of owning a turret. She designed the Nerf Vulcan Sentry Gun, a self-automated turret that can shoot Nerf darts up to seven times faster than normal. In addition, it uses a unique targeting system that can be programmed to attack only enemies, leaving the owner free from foam dart damage.

The Nerf Vulcan is already connected to an electric motor, so Michelsen just connected the system to an Arduino Uno board and a laptop. She then made a proprietary stand for the sentry, using plywood and some servos which actually help tilt and pan the turret. Other modifications were made, like a new firing pin of a larger size which not only improves accuracy it also improves firing power. Of course, all of these modifications and upgrades called for an increase in power, so Michelsen outfitted the setup with a high-voltage battery pack.

The turret is actually operated by an open-source program that was developed by Bob Rudolph of Project Sentry Gun. A webcam is attached to the turret, allowing it to scan and analyze the local vicinity. It also works as a lock-on and target recognition system.

Michelsen posted a guide about building the Nerf Vulcan Sentry Gun on Instructables, so if you’re feeling up to the task you can hit up the page and try to build one of your own. She was also kind enough to demonstrate the turret for interested parties via a YouTube video which I’ve included below.

Check it out!

[via Project Sentry Gun, Gizmag]