How does a Nerf Gun work?

- [Jared] The Nerf Gun is an important part of every toy collection, good for target practice, Nerf battles, and reverse engineering them so we can see how they work. Let's get ready to have some fun. (electronic zapping) (dramatic music) (cheerful electronic music) This specific Nerf Gun is called the Nerf Elite Disruptor. Six darts can be loaded in at one time, pull back on the cocking mechanism, aim, and pull that trigger. (cheerful electronic music) You'll see on the left side of the gun, a

bunch of holes for the screws. If we take them all out, we can get a good look at what's inside. (cheerful electronic music) Naturally, let's start with the trigger. You can see it's connected to a spring. You can pull the trigger back, but as soon as you let it go, it will spring back into its original position. You can see a bunch of extra plastic here. This connects with another piece which I'm gonna call the vertical slider. This is normally held up by a spring. When the trigger gets pulled,

the vertical slider comes down. I'm gonna come back to this in a second. This is the piston. It fits inside the tube along with a powerful spring. The spring inside of here wants to keep the piston all the way forward. This is where the cocking mechanism comes into place. Notice the small block sticking out here. When you pull it back, the piston comes with it. You can definitely feel that the spring is resisting as you try and pull. Pull it back far enough and it engages with the vertical slid

er and hooks in right here. Now your Nerf Gun is loaded and ready to go. One thing I want to point out is that when your gun is loaded, this orange strip will be visible from behind. Okay, here we go. Pull the trigger, the vertical slider comes down, which then releases the piston, which quickly springs back into place, all of the air inside the tube is immediately forced out the front onto the dart. Houston, we have ignition. Now after the dart fires, the cylinder rotates and the next dart goes

into place. Now how does that work? There's a few more pieces below the piston to help this work. There's some supporting black plastic, white rotating cam, and the cam bar. When the piston comes out far enough, it will latch on to the cam bar. When the trigger is pulled, the piston is released and the dart is fired, just like we've seen before. Followed closely behind that, the cam bar comes forward again which rotates the cam, which then rotates the cylinder with all the darts. Let's focus on

just the cam and the cam bar. You can see each time the bar goes forward again, the cam rotates. The magic happens on the other side. (cheerful electronic music) the bar has a circular tip at the end here. The tip fits right inside these grooves here on the cam. As the bar goes back and forth, the tip will slide right through here. Now the bar is positioned in such a way that there's a little bit of pressure. It wants to go into the cam. As the bar comes back, it will pass over this edge and go

further into the groove. When the bar goes forward again, instead of returning to where it was straight ahead, it will follow along this side. When that happens, the cam is forced to rotate. Let's watch that again. Slides, back, pops down, comes forward again, and follows the curve. Mechanical devices like this fascinate me. I can only imagine how much work this must have been to design something like this and make sure it works correctly. Currently, you can get one of these Nerf Guns off of Am

azon for about 12 U.S. Dollars. I'll put a link in the description below. My name's Jared and I'm a 3-D animator here on YouTube. Check out my videos to learn about how things work. If you'd like to help me make more videos like this, then visit my Patreon page. Thanks everyone. I'll see you next time. (cheerful electronic music)