This video is sponsored by Apex legends.
As you guys know I'm a big fan of battle
royale style games, which is why I'm
super excited to announce this video has
been brought to you by the one and only
Apex Legends
Yep they came to us knowing our penchant
for making it real and asked us to make
one the new deployable turrets from
their new release of season 2.
Battle charge. Which by the way is free to play click the link in the description below
to play today. It's available on ps4 Xbox
and PC.
The turret they asked us to build.
It's not just any turret. No no no it's
Natalie Watson Paquette's ultimate ability
One of the new characters
available in season 2.
She's the daughter of the game's lead electrical engineer
which makes sense when he see her abilities.
Raised in king's canyon by her
father Natalie Paquette's first love has
always been electricity. Hence her
nickname Watson.
Watson: The best offense is a strong defense.
As you can imagine from a
rather electrifying personality.
Her ultimate electrical abilities are
terrifyingly useful.
Her interception pylon brings a respite to combat.
Watson: You
underestimated me sometimes careful planning wins out over might.
Earning her the reputation as the eye of the storm.
Watson: This never gets any easier. but it how the game works.
This deploy-able interception pylon is a
battery-powered twin Tesla coil defense turret.
Once setup it shoots electrical
arcs or quite literally lightning at
anything that comes near. Destroying
ordnance and repairing your own teammate shields.
The question is, is this possible
to build in real life?
Well you came to the right place because here at Hacksmith industries it's our job to turn
fiction into reality for you guys to see.
We'll start with the easy part I'll get a few of my guys on the team to design
and build the legs of the turret.
While they're doing that I've got to figure
out the hardest part of this project.
How are we gonna make a Tesla coil that can
shoot lightning far enough to create a
defensive perimeter.
Hey Aaron? Yeah It's
James from The Hacksmith.
I was wondering if I could borrow one of those
little Tesla coils you have?
Yeah that'd be awesome thanks!
Well that was easier
than I thought.
that was Aaron from Applied Tesla technology down in Texas.
They're one of the only and one of the
biggest manufacturers of giant Tesla
coils around and we had the pleasure of
meeting them a few years ago when we
sought to catch real lightning using
Thor's hammer. It's a fantastic video
that you should really check out.
I guess it helps to have contacts. Anyway
while the team works on building those
legs I'm gonna go pick up our Tesla
coils. Let's hope they're done by the
time I get back.
Ben: So firstly we have to design some spider
legs as a base. They're gonna be a three
part leg with one actuator. There will be
four these at the base of the turret to
raise up the scissor lift.
We will then mount the Tesla coils on
the scissor lift and convert that to be
powered by an electronic actuator
So now I need to weld these up install
it on there put one more tube in and
Grind it up and we're all done.
Okay now we're going to hack a
motorcycle scissor lifts and use it as
the midsection of the interception pylon.
This fits in perfectly with our design
because all we need to do is switch out
to the hydraulic cylinder with a linear actuator.
For more information about our
electronics make sure to check out our
circuit diagram on maker dot IO. Links in
the description.
So we are ready to install the linear actuators
and set up the cable systems between the
two joints here. So we have an 8 inch
linear actuator
that will drive one joint of the legs.
This this linkage is a leg linkage and
then through a cable from the leg
linkage at the very first linkage it'll
then drive that angle. It effectively
acts like 4 bar so we have one cable
running across here that maintains the
angle between this bar and this bar.
We can vary the behavior of the joint
system by moving the eye hook farther
out and that will change the way that
the legs actually behave allow us to
fine-tune the movement that we want
Goodness, this is scary.
JT: Gotta try standing on it next.
I'm gonna blame JT for telling me to jump.
All right so that didn't work too well.
see here the cables just pulled out.
So we're going to have to remake those and we did.
Here they are.
Took a few hours we remade
all of them and then that happened, well
it's supposed to be closer to this.
So, starting over.
This is our next design.
So we started with a 3 inch rod.
We added a slight bend to avoid any interference
with the mechanism.
Threaded the end so we have a little bit of adjustments and then welded on a yoke on the other side.
Alright, bring me up!
Alright, should we do a jump test?
Yeah it feels stronger. I like that.
BEN: You're going up!
JORDIE: Evan!
EVAN: What in the hell?!
BEN: That's James! He's here from Texas with the Tesla coils!
JAMES: Got the Tesla coil.
Alright boys what
we got here is a one MTC Tesla coil
straight from applied Tesla in Texas and
it's frickin sweet check this out!
That was a long ride.
And it's basicallyplug and play. And we can we can literally set it up right now.
IAN: Ready Ben?
BEN: Noo!
JAMES: Let's make some lightning!
Firing!
Not bad! So Ian here has a metal rod which
he is holding with is hand!
Electricity wants the easiest path to ground and
right now the easiest path is actually
through that wire back to the grounding
bolt on the Tesla coil.
So the real question is do you feel lucky?
IAN: I do, hit me!
It's gonna be a lot of fun. Alright,
that was pretty awesome we now have our
very own 1MTC Tesla coil from Applied
Tesla that can shoot as you saw like
two-foot lightning bolts so this is the
last piece we need to actually finish
building the interception pylon so let's
get to it!
So now we just have to put them together and finish this project!
Alright so we've got a rough prototype
for bringing the coils together as the
Spider-pod stands up.
So that part works pretty good, looks
pretty awesome, the issue is the Tesla coils
are far too far apart right now we
really want them more on like a 45 degree
angle away from each other so we're
actually gonna have to redesign this
mounting section that we've done so
these are actually moved down like this
a bit so they can come closer together
so we're gonna redesign that and...
BEN: So we're about to see the first little test
of the whole system legs Tesla coils
scissor jack and I'm just gonna put the
switch right here and it should just go up!
RILEY: I've never I'd never seen it
before full-size this thing's crazy.
Imagine this thing walking towards you
in a dark hallway in the middle of the night.
Okay so the turret is coming along
awesome it looks great but the one issue
is our Tesla coils well they look like
Tesla coils. And in the game they
actually kind of look a bit more like on
the top of a hydro pole or something so
what we're going to do is we're going to
do some cosmetic changes to this that
won't affect the functionality we'll
make it look a bit more like the game.
So to start we're gonna use a much smaller
toroid that's the aluminum part on top
that shoots all the lightning I'm gonna
laser-cut out a whole bunch of MDF rings.
Alright so I've got all the pieces cut
out now using MDF and I think it looks
pretty good now all we have to do is
paint these sections white and then
we'll be able to put the copper wrap
around here and here and a black hose
there and then it should look just like that.
I can't wait till they have a real paint
booth.
Alright now to put it all together
first remove the old toroid and install the new one.
Now we have to glue in all the white
spacers. Use some hot glue to hold the
plates in place. Time for the next layer.
Alright I got the spacers installed now. We can make the
coil like a bit more menacing by adding
some fake windings around the external
so to do that I'm gonna use a combination
of black hose in the middle section.
Can't even tell it's not real wire. Now to
make it look a bit more professional
we're also going to wrap it and Kapton
tape the same stuff they use in satellites
and other high voltage stuff so it should look
pretty good. Almost looks real,
next up the fake copper.
Alright there we go looks pretty good
and I'll just have to do that again on
the bottom side and then do it all over again.
Tada! I'd saythat looks pretty good
alright let's finish wrapping the coils.
Real fake coils!
Tada! Real fake Tesla coils. Except it's real.
Alright now turn it on.
RILEY: No, don't turn it on!
Alright so we've put a ton of work
into this and it's finally complete and
I think it looks pretty awesome just
watch this.
Alright look at that this thing is
massive it's gotta be at least like 8 or
9 feet tall hey maybe we should actually
measure it. Ian? Oh yeah it's like 9 feet
on the on the dot all right now for the
moment everyone's been waiting for
actually turning on and seeing some
lightning bolts so let's do that we've
got this nice little controller that
comes with the one 1MTC Tesla coil click
that on switch and then crank it!
Alright that's freaking awesome it
shoots like two to three-foot lightning
bolts but what can it actually do? And is
it actually similar to what it does in
the game? So I've actually got this table
of some things we're gonna play with to
show you just how powerful these
lightning bolts are. First of all in the
game it creates kind of like an
electrical field or a semi sphere around
your team and if anyone throws any
grenades or enemy ordnance in it
explodes them so to recreate that we've
actually got a little drone here that
we're going to fly through there and see
if the lightning can disable it but
before we do that let's see just how far
the electrical field extends from Tesla
coil and just show you that we're gonna
hold a fluorescent light bulb up and
this is actually going to light up once
it's within range of the Tesla coils
let's see how close that is.
What is that? That comes out at through
220 centimeters or 7 feet so at 2.2
meters away from the Tesla coil you're
still getting a bit of electrical
interference lighting up those fluorescent
bulbs, that's actually pretty
impressive if we had one of the really
big Tesla coils from applied Tesla it
would probably be well over double that. Those things can shoot like
eight ten-foot lightning bolts so you
can imagine that electrical field is
pretty big. Alright let's see what
happens when we fly some drones through
the lightning I'm just gonna control it from
over here
and our drone pilots are gonna start flying.
Okay, round two!
JT: There you go actually it's a ploy to
collect the enemies drones.
Alright, round three!
Alright that's pretty awesome it can
definitely take a drone out of the sky
it just doesn't quite have the same
range as it does in the game but that
was still pretty cool to do but now
let's actually catch some Lightning and
to start why don't we go with a classic
Thor's hammer so I've got a grounding
wire here which hypothetically means I'm
not gonna get electrocuted.
Crank it!
Sword!
Alright that was pretty cool but what if we
threw a balloon in there? Ian can you get me a
completely normal balloon filled with
air? Thank you!
That felt weird...
It kinda works faster. So we're told these
Tesla coils aren't exactly lethal which
means you can maybe touch it and survive
I wouldn't recommend doing it but let's
see how brave we are. Crank it!
IAN: I could feel pin pricks all through my hand!
JAMES: Do not try this at home!
Are we promoting bad like
electric safety?
Let me just practice my electrocution.
And that's how you learn of something
can electrocute you.
Alright, well that was all fun and
games but let's take this outside where
other people can see it.
A giant robot took over City Hall in
downtown Kitchener tonight the
Hacksmith is a local maker that turns
fictional ideas into working prototypes,
and this is his latest invention.
That definitely arced to my arm or
something because my whole arm shook.
It wasn't that bad.
Well that was awesome! Big shout-out to
Apex legends for sponsoring this video
and making this project possible we
really hope you enjoyed this video and
make sure you try Apex Legends today
there are links in the description below
the game is free, what are you waiting for?
