I built nerf supersuits... (and almost ruined Jimmy Kimmel Live)

Okay, so no joke: our custom nerf blasters  were on the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show! We spent two weeks running 80  3D printers to print over 500 parts to build our most epic blaster build ever! They feature eight high-capacity gauntlet  blasters sitting on top of four frame packs with dual shoulder cannons for that extra punch! Today we're going to show  you not only how we built them but how absolutely nothing went wrong(!) A week ago, I got a really strange email. Science Bob over at Jimmy Kimmel 

Live reached out to do a build. Science Bob does a lot of  cool builds for the show. He previously did a ping pong ball blaster  -- it's like a backpack-fed blaster. And they reached out to me because they  wanted an Iron Man-style gauntlet blaster. This kind of project was  absolutely fascinating, of course. We have our Jupiter blaster -- which is  a ball blaster, and then on top of that, I’ve got my Proton Pack design, which is a  high-capacity, high rate-of-fire feed system. The crazy part i

s that they  needed this in three weeks. So, I quickly sent off a bid, I didn't  get a lot of time to really dive in, but ultimately the producers didn't immediately  approve it, and they wanted to see more. So, I went back to doing what I like  doing, and that's making videos. I sent them over a pitch video, and  fortunately, the job was approved. The problem now is that the bidding and  pitch process ate up an entire week, so our three weeks are now down to two. Thankfully, I don't have to do

this all alone. My print tech, Carey, is going  to be running all the prints. My mod tech, Greg, is going to be  doing the majority of the soldering. Thanks, Greg! And as luck would have it, my  buddy Tarik, our 3D designer, happens to be visiting this Thursday  -- just four days into the project. We don't have any time to  waste, so let's get going! So, we're diving right into it here, and I’m  trying to figure out the actual filament colors. Seeing as my filament supplier is local here  in Van

couver, WA, I’m gonna run over there and just get the color I need because I’m  pretty sure they'll have something for me. And off to Proto-Pasta! They're a really great group,  and I love working with them. It's been really fun to have a collaborator  on this filament color situation. Hey Alex! -Hey! -Let's see what you got! -We just like included the new gray. -Oh yeah? -It’s, like, the most neutral gray. It's just “Good Old Gray.” -So, I think we found it! We are looking at “Good Old  Gray,”

which is literally right in the range of what I was looking  for, so I think that's gonna do us. Awesome, thank you, Alex! All right! We got four rolls from Proto-Pasta. We ended up with two different  colors, so we've got some options. Time to get back to the  warehouse and get printing! So, we're basically the end of our first  day of work, and we have got the majority of the prints running -- at least all  the ones that are going to take any time. Greg and I have been sorting out electronics,

  and we're getting pretty close to having… Nothing basically(!) It's day one, but we have as much progress  as we could possibly have in a single day. We are getting going on slicing and printing! We have a lot of printers,  so things go pretty fast. So, I’m essentially just going through  and loading up cards one at a time here and getting them ready to print, and then  we'll get them over to the printing department. Hey Carey! I've got some prints for you. These are all the rest of the  gaunt

let parts for the blaster. We should probably do these approximately  in order customer orders are first. This is more like: Hopefully, tonight we can print  some of this but let's do customer stuff first. Hey, Greg; good morning! Looks like you're already  doing what we need to do today! Greg is going to build up the  actual Proton Pack feed system. So, he's starting the wiring  on that getting those going, and then we'll start putting things actually  together as we get everything printed. And

I’m going to get back to designing. Leave it to Tarik to overengineer something(!) So, this whole system -- the gauntlet --  needs a button press, and Tarik sent me this. This is the first draft that he came up with. You can't see the seam at all, but you can take it  apart to access wiring a different kind of switch. I think the switch he has must  need to be inserted this way, but the switch I need actually  needs to go in from the top. So, I’ve got to send him some notes and  dimensions on t

his and figure out the actual size on these switches to  make sure we get it right. -We have an issue with the print. So, what's happening is the  swivel is impacting our arm mount… -Oh no! So, our problem we have here is we got rid of an  extra mount that's in the middle of these parts; we didn't need that extra height. But then, in doing so, we've caused a collision we didn't foresee when putting  these two parts together. So now we have to cut some out of this  part in the 3D model to make th

at work. I'm here on the print farm, and  we are running prints like crazy! The way this project timed  out was actually really tough. I just talked to my print tech Carey,  and one of the challenging things that happened here is that we basically  started this project on a Monday. We don't work weekends anymore;  I like for the team to have off, and I like to have off with my family. So, we essentially have to take care of all  of the orders that came in Saturday, Sunday, Monday (or even Friday

night),  on a Monday, and on a Tuesday. So, we're here on Tuesday now, and there's  still weekend orders that we're catching up on. And then at the same time, I’m  throwing all this stuff for the build on, but I think we're gonna get it done. We've got a lot of prints running. We're about halfway through all  of the printing we need to do, as far as I can tell, but we will have some  reprints and a few things here and there. So, it's going to be tight, but we'll  get it printed as fast as we ca

n. You never can have enough printers! It doesn't matter; we've got  80 here, and I still want more! So, we've got this base plate for the Proton Pack. One of the things about the Proton Pack is it  doesn't currently have an on/off switch because it's got a self-timeout function; we didn't  want people to leave the batteries in here. But for being used on stage, they  definitely need a master on/off. My plan is to put this little guy here; just make a recessed hole that  can't be activated by ac

cident. So, what I’m going to do is I’ve actually just spliced this up, and I’ll only print this  little sample piece to make sure the fit's okay. So yeah, that actually printed fine. I wasn't sure about the overhangs  on the plastic there, but I’ve got my switch here; we’ll just shove this in… I love when things just work on the first try. I think I’m gonna change the tolerance. There's a little bit more slop there; it could  be a little tighter, but that'll totally work. It can't get activated

by accident. I love it when things go this smoothly. I can't say the same for the motor  braking and the time delay circuit. So, we've got this problem  we're trying to figure out: This blaster needs both a motor  braking circuit to slow down the motor after it stops firing so it doesn't push a ball  into the flywheels while they're not spinning. It also needs a delay circuit so the flywheels  can get fully up to speed before firing. We thought we'd solve that with a  delay circuit, but now we'

re realizing… Greg figured out that after you hook it  up, you have residual generated current from the motors that basically continues to  run the pusher, so the braking goes away. Yeah, I can see it! I guess I’ll steal these glasses. Well, that did nothing! Let me … There's a solution I’m missing here. So, Greg and I have been trying to  figure out this issue with our motor braking circuit not working, and I, for  the life of me, could not figure it out. I'm not an electrical engineer;  I don'

t have that background. So, I gave a quick call to my  buddy James, and he saved the day. We had to add a diode and  switch how the MOSFET was being controlled, and now we have exactly what we need! We should be good to actually get this going. It's day five. I picked up Tarik at  almost midnight last night at the airport, so he's here to help us figure some things out. I think today is all about finalizing  a lot of these little designs. I've got to do the bracket for the frame pack. You're goi

ng to work on wiring  and just solder, solder, solder! Next is the battery door  compartment to hold the relay. Cool. I think we get to it because we got to  get these prints running if we want to see another sample today or another prototype today. Awesome! That might even be more appealing. You'd have this on your hand, and then essentially (because this is connected  to your wrist), you’d be able to open your hand, and then you could reach down to like a pull  tab that would fire one side and

then the other? And I’m thinking two on each side. So, they'd be sitting up at that level. So, I am trying to solve the problem  of mounting these onto the pack. I was pretty tired yesterday, but I whipped  up a really quick little bracket here. It essentially attaches to the original  pack and lets us rotate this slightly, so it'll work for both sides. Got to get these going because I want this  done by the end of the day, so I’m going to get back to figuring out a few sizing  changes, and we

should be good to go. I reprinted something and didn't realize that  the two designs I had were not connected, so the design parameters and  the sizing didn't change. So, I basically waited for this print for nothing. This is just one of the many things that  happen with design is like you think you got everything, but small little mistakes pop  up, especially if you're trying to work quickly. The general idea is this will pop on here… Or did I ruin that too? Okay, I made that too snug now… Womp

, womp! Okay, we're gonna print that again! So, it is Saturday! That makes this, I believe, day  six as far as our operation goes. I am here with Tarik; it's just Tarik  and I here today running the printers. We are literally running basically all 80 printers  here behind me, and it's going to be tight. We have a stretch goal of adding these  shoulder-mounted cannons to the build, and that's taking a little bit  longer because it's 16 units to print for the four packs: three for the actual  deli

verable and then one for a backup. It's gonna be close, but I think we can get it! Good morning everybody! It's Tuesday. Thank you, everybody, for all  your work in the last week. We're in a pretty good spot.  I think we're wrapping things most of the project up today, but our goal  is to ship all of these on Monday morning. Greg and Luke are using that big island back there for prepping everything  for the Jimmy Kimmel Project. So, anything prep-related, let's just do  elsewhere so they can hav

e that clear table. I think that's been mentioned already,  but just a reminder in the meeting … Sourcing has been one of the hardest things  with this job because we only have two weeks. One of the things we needed to figure out  was a frame pack that was sturdy enough. I went to Sportsman's Warehouse and a sporting  goods store, and I also called around to a few military surplus stores, but we really  couldn't find the kind of pack we wanted. So, we ended up buying this one off Amazon. At firs

t, I didn't love it, but then we took this top bracket up off, and we took the  cargo plate off, so it's kind of a bare frame. Now we just need to get three more of them. That pack's low, right? Oh, it's that one! … but… -So, it’s your pusher, your  flywheels, and all that. -Perfect! Perfect! -Finally! -Okay yeah, so let's close that one up;  we’ll share that with the client today -I was gonna load it up and actually test-fire it -Yeah, do it. Greg has got all the wiring external here. We're wai

ting on some buttons,  but we've got it all wired up. Everything's here, so we're just gonna  test our single-button operation. Whenever you're ready… Try a few like small bursts. Not bad! It's pretty snappy! I'll get them all hooked up to the  button so I can tune the delay circuit. Then that way, all we'll have to do is wire  them up and then just give them a test fire. Nice! We're getting there! Thanks, Greg! So, we had a minor setback. I was going to use these little  blasters we have called

Proud Papa. They're mountable blasters  that shoot a variety of ammo. But it would look really cool to do  mega xl because they are much larger; they'll play on screen, and when they  fly through the air, they whistle. But then I printed all that  that we're not going to use. We took over all the printers; we had  to basically print all weekend long, even while the game was running, and now we  have our bigger version, which is Mighty Mama. The plan here is to mount two of these  to each side o

f the pack just like this. I designed a little custom bracket here;  really simple, but it should do the job. Then I’ve designed a little para-- pull  cord, rather, that'll go through here. The idea is that you'll be able to fire both on  one side at the same time -- that kind of thing. So, it'll fire both when I’ve got them linked  up, and you'll have one on either side. So, I’m gonna put two more on this first pack and get the cords figured out  and make sure this works! This is one of the iss

ues: We're going to get customers that are  going to ask us if they can buy this, and the answer is: flat out not right now. No. Because none of the stuff that  we've done here is production-ready. It's done as quickly as we can, as  best we can, but not ready to be efficiently assembled and put together. So, Carey right now is struggling  in doing the hard job of actually getting these packs mounted  up because it's kind of a funky space. I'm trying to figure out a new addition: The show asked

us if we could increase the ammo  capacity because they're a little concerned that the three of them on stage  might be having too much fun. Right now, with the base  capacity that we've got here, you can run both of these for 30 seconds straight. We're gonna make a coupler that basically you can screw a second pack on top  of the first one; you could double the capacity. We also ordered some half-size containers  if they want to mix up the size. I've got to either make a coupler – I've done thi

s in the past where I  cut this out and glued them together – Or I can 3D print it. I think we glue it. I think we're gonna cut and glue. I'm just sanding this a little bit so the  hot glue has more surface area to grip on. That should do it. Now to do six more. This is a purple and… What color mighty mama is this getting? Did I screw this up? How did we get the color scheme – How did I get this wrong? Tarik and I must have… Okay so we have… I thought we were done printing! We're never done prin

ting! Do you see what's happening here? I do. Swap two of them. I'm gonna go get the prints ready for  two of those and then four of the arms… So, the arms I had you installed  are gonna get swapped as well. Today we're finally putting everything together! We're assembling the final packs before our  demo day and before we ship the blasters out! I'd say nice work, Greg! We're going to shoot them at daddy! Does that sound fun? Do you want to see them all shot at daddy? No? Oh, what do you got the

re? Yeah, do you want to play and run around? Play Play? Okay. Be very gentle with everything, you guys! What you're going to do is… I'm going to set you up to get strapped in. So let go of this; you just worry  about the backpack for a second. Okay, you can step forward. Bring the full weight on yourself. Okay, get your belt strapped on, and then  there's a cross strap across the chest. You can step away. Yep! If you've got the straps on your shoulders,  you're good; it's not that heavy. Okay,

anybody that's loaded, go over to receiving and just mind the corners as you go around  things because there's lots of stuff to snag on. After 12 long days of  building, we are finally here! My team worked really hard the  last two weeks -- those that were involved directly in the  project and those who weren't. So, the ones that happen to be here today  are going to do a test-fire of the blasters. Each of my four team members has two packs on  their back; each one fires 15 rounds a second. That

’s a total of 120 rounds-per-second  coming at me, and I’m going to let them unload the entire capacity of the hopper  about [800] a piece or [3200] rounds. Definitely gonna need some eye  protection; I’m ready to get hosed! All right, three, two, one, fire! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! The demo day and final testing was a  complete success without any issues! Finally, we carefully packed up  the blasters to ship them down. We did have a little issue with the boxes,  but fortunately, one of our team

members, Jess, saved the day with some boxes from home. The production, thankfully, flew  me down to support during the show. A huge thank you to Science Bob and  the entire team at Jimmy Kimmel: You were all a pleasure to work with,  and I would love to be back anytime! The trip was a complete crazy  blur, but unfortunately, during the rehearsal, we did have an issue  where one of the motors fried. I ended up doing a repair last  minute and replaced both sets of flywheel motors before the actua

l final on stage. A huge thank you to John and  Nova for letting me not only take a look at the prop shop but use  your space to work on these repairs. We did have the same issue on  stage during the final taping, but the team took it in stride, and the  whole segment really worked well despite it. We're now certain that this was caused by too  short of a delay time on the pusher motor. But ultimately, when you're only given two weeks  to build, you only have so much time to test such a complex

project with so many moving pieces, and  there are bound to be some bumps along the way. Despite working in the  filmmaking industry for 13 years, working behind the scenes on a live tv  show was a completely different experience. I enjoyed it so much, and I did  film a little video here and there; I’m gonna do a completely separate,  maybe five-to-eight-minute video. So do subscribe down below to  see that video in the future. On that note, thank you so much for watching! If you made it all the

way to the end, this  is definitely one of our longer videos. We don't make a lot of behind-the-scenes videos  like this because these videos take a ton of time. If I had to estimate, I’m sure Perry spent ten times as long on this video as  any other video we generally do. Please leave us a comment down below, hit that  like button, do subscribe, and let Perry and I know that you enjoyed this kind of content,  and we'll do more of this in the future! I really had a fun time working on this larg

er  build, and I hope we can do it again soon! Until next time, I’m out of darts!