Marshmallow Shooter
Marshmallow shooters or guns are a great little project for you and your children. Marshmallow guns require very little money, skill and effort to make. They are the best fun toy guns you can make yourself for just a couple bucks. Since they work a lot like Legos®, they are constant fun when they can remake and add-on to these toys. They are great for all ages and safe (except for your indoor carpet). We heard about these cool creations from a co-worker then my sons and I went out onto the internet to research how to make one. We found a design on instructables.com, which is an excellent website for cool projects.
Materials back to top
I originally purchased these materials a few years ago from a home improvement center. I have listed the cost that I paid for the pieces below.
Total Cost for 1 toy gun = $2.00 (approximately)
ALL PIECES BELOW ARE 1/2 inch PVC Length of tubing (drinking water grade)
- 1/2 inch PVC 10 feet length $1.62
- T joint 10 pack $2.56
- L joint 10 pack $1.92
- end cap individual piece $0.23
- coupler 10 pack (optional) $1.28
Skill Level and Time Required back to top
Skill Level = Easy
Total time = 15 minutes
You can choose to cut the tubing with a hacksaw which is the common method. We decided to go with an old-fashioned pipe cutter. This made it possible for the younger kids to do the entire project without serious risk of injury. Please see the tip below about pipe cutter and fitting tube into pieces.
At the time my 7 & 8 year old sons had no problems measuring and cutting the toy gun pieces. They also found it very easy to take the pieces they had and assemble them in the right order using the hand-drawn diagram that I copied from instructables.com.
Tips back to top
- Always supervise children when working with dangerous tools!
- Use a small pipe cutter instead of hacksaw if you are working with younger kids.
- A pipe cutter will cause ends of pipe to expand slightly but they will still fit into connectors; they will just be tighter.
- Do not glue pieces together. This will allow you to take the toy gun apart if it jams or you want to add more sections to it. As mentioned, these toy gun pieces work a lot like Legos®.
- Let your kids be creative and modify the design and test different configurations. The whole Lego® aspect is cool!
- Make a little science study out of this project. Study physics principles as they relate to the marshmallow shooter such as velocity, trajectories and the venturi effect.
- Fill in the extra cavities of the toy gun that are not part of the natural passageway of the projectile marshmallow. This allows the air pressure when you blow to be more directed in the ammo’s firing pathway. See diagram for more details.
- Filling up the front handle with marshmallows for a semi-automatic weapon might sound like a good idea but the marshmallows tend to get stuck.
- Fill up a sandwich baggie with mini-marshmallows and duct tape bag to the gun barrel for faster and easier loading.
- Marshmallows will stick to the carpet and floor in your house so keep the battles outside. This will keep mom happy. Also, look out for attracting unwanted ants to these sweet treats on the ground.
by Bryan 4/1/2009
