Being an big Spider-Man fan and having built my own EDITH glasses, I had had some ideas for a Web Shooter design for a while. The opportunity came to build it during one of my Year 12 "Mini Projects" about SLA 3D printing mechanisms. This was V2, which I designed in about 2 weeks on Fusion 360 and printed using a Formlabs Form 3 for the Grey resin and a Form 2 for the transparent turquoise "Tough" resign which is less brittle and what I used for the internal mechanisms. Other than that it uses minimal hardware: a few screws and brass inserts, two springs, and some fishing line for the catch-release pull.
The device uses re-usable "web" cartridges which have the string for the "webs" and the projectile built in. The cartridge can be inserted into the back of the web shooter, automatically loading the projectile; the priming hook is pulled back to the catch; and then the release (attached to a finger) is pulled to fire. The webs can be any string and the projectiles can be customised to have magnets, Velcro, hooks or even an adhesive.
I only have one prototype as of now, and it is currently out of service due to an internal part breaking and the screws being stuck so I can't open it. Hopefully I'll make a new one before the end of the year and put up a video on YouTube!
[Credit for inspiration goes to JT from Built IRL, a brilliant YouTube channel! Built IRL - YouTube]
