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$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

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Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#431

Post by SiempreViernes »

robertlagrant wrote: post #409

> Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom's Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home. Not that this matters for the topic, but I don't see why people have started saying "weapons system" instead of "weapon".

I think ultimately it's a consequence of weapons manufacturers in the US is trying to make their products sound more impressive, and in general military terminology is a huge nonsensical mess.

Just consider that "self propelled gun" and "main battle tank" are very different things despite the first being a quite accurate description of what the latter consists of. Or the distinction between a cruise missile and a one way drone...

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#432

Post by quamserena »

Hasz wrote: post #414

Regardless of whether this actually works (I have my doubts, but also understand it might be difficult to get range time on a device like this :)), it exposes a fundamental issue with arms control today. Small firearms are hundreds of years old. Drones have been commercially available for many years and are easily modifiable into something that is 80% as good as what is currently being fielded in Ukraine. It is not t…

These discussions always focus around enforcement and never on alignment. The moat for this stuff historically has never been strict enforcement; it has been that the people who have the know-how on how to do it have nothing to gain by doing it, since they are well-educated and benefit from the current socioeconomic order (they have no motive to change it; rather, they want to climb it).

This is shifting. First, economic stratification is getting worse, and as economic mobility declines people start looking for alternatives. (See all of Gen Z cheering for Luigi Mangione). Second, AI will enable people who are less educated to build these kinds of weapons.

For example, you can use a Kalman filter to greatly improve the data you get from an IMU and GPS via sensor fusion. Before, this required a specialist skillset; now you can get a "good enough" implementation by prompting Claude.

I really wish the debate around this stuff wasn't framed in terms of preventative enforcement because it naturally leads towards more enforcement (when your only tool is a hammer...). The root of the issue is that the government does not trust its citizenry to follow the law without Big Brother watching. That in and of itself is a symptom of a larger grave political crisis in America: the decay of the state's political legitimacy.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#433

Post by the__alchemist »

I will be a negative yancy, and regurgitate things from the previous thread in combination with my pattern-matching brain and experience with making UAS firmware/hardware etc.

Cool project, but this is the 1% of the work that's required to get an initial platform in place. It cannot intercept an airborne target, and it will take the rest of the 99% of the work on testing, refining guidance/propulsion/sensors etc, finding and fixing errors, finding and fixing incorrect assumptions that will lead to re-building various subsystems etc.

Another way of phrasing it is that this is a cargo cult MANPADS.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#434

Post by tokai »

robertlagrant wrote: post #409

> Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom's Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home. Not that this matters for the topic, but I don't see why people have started saying "weapons system" instead of "weapon".

Nobody has started saying weapon systems instead of weapon. Its just precise terminology.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#435

Post by Hasz »

idiotsecant wrote: post #418
Hasz wrote: post #414

Regardless of whether this actually works (I have my doubts, but also understand it might be difficult to get range time on a device like this :)), it exposes a fundamental issue with arms control today. Small firearms are hundreds of years old. Drones have been commercially available for many years and are easily modifiable into something that is 80% as good as what is currently being fielded in Ukraine. It is not t…

I am certainly pro T2A but your argument doesn't hold - laws to regulate arms are not effective only in a binary way - if they reduce the number of arms they are doing what they say on the tin. Whether we should be trying to regulate arms is another issue.

I am not arguing laws need to be binary-effective. You are right, most of the current laws are designed to slowly erode public support for the 2nd amendment by making the barrier to entry so absurdly high that the average person cannot feasibly own firearms.

I am arguing that the new laws being proposed (e.g serializing other firearms components, ammo serialization, assault weapons bans, higher gun-owner standards) have absolutely no bearing on an entirely new source of firearms. Many Dem-controlled states have passed "ghost gun" regulation, but there is no real enforcement mechanism and it's mostly an additional charge to tack on after an actual crime has been committed.

You can see states like CA trying to go after 3D printers, but I suspect this will fail. There is no software out there that can realistically determine whether a part is a firearm component, other than dumb hashes of known parts. 3DP is a general tool, it is like trying to ban milling machines, files, or basic handtools.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#436

Post by snowwrestler »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #395

In the two test launches shown in the video, the "missile" doesn't fly straight nor does it demonstrate ability to be "guided" by the launcher towards any particular target. It's also incredibly slow. There are children's rocket kits that fly significantly faster than this.

The engine and the warhead are two of the biggest challenges in making a missile, in large part because anything high performance is also going to be spectacularly dangerous to manufacture.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#437

Post by ericmay »

swiftcoder wrote: post #424

When everyone started working on 3D-printed guns, I was sitting here thinking that if it comes to actual revolution, one is going to need anti-tank/anti-air a whole lot more than (relatively easy to acquire) small arms... Nice to see movement on this front

In the American context, hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. We should do what we can to avoid one, especially because while it's fun to fantasize about your side being the one to start a revolution, there's no reason to think that the other side won't also think the same way and maybe they'll beat your side and make your life really, really awful.

Secondarily, there's a lot to say about anti-tank and anti-air power in the context of a "revolution". Most of it is pure fantasy including the idea that 3D printed missiles are going to start striking US strike aircraft at 40k feet in the equally absurd fantasy that those aircraft are going to just be bombing American cities and towns and countrysides. It's really just pure Internet-driven fantasy to think that these scenarios are plausible or the least bit desirable in any fashion.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#438

Post by pif »

notlenin wrote: post #405
throwa356262 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a time to be alive. In fact, I think I now have all I need to start a war with my neighbours.

you could have started a war with your neighbors using only sticks and stones - indeed, much of human history is people starting wars with their neighbors using weapons that we today would call primitive. But now you can start a very destructive war with your neighbors. Thanks to modern technology, you don't have to bother beating your neighbor to death with a wooden club, you now can annihilate them, and basically a…

> you now can annihilate them [...] from a comfortable distance

The problem is: they can, too.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#439

Post by Hasz »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #410

I think with the proliferation and effectiveness of countermeasures passive target acquisition and first shot accuracy with traditional ballistic methods might be a better place to focus but I understand that's very hard to do nonprofessionally as an individual thanks to the rules and laws. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for making them blow their $1k active countermeasures on your $500 missiles before…

This is called the shot exchange problem and is a very, very active area of work.

Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor

#440

Post by cucumber3732842 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #429
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #410

I think with the proliferation and effectiveness of countermeasures passive target acquisition and first shot accuracy with traditional ballistic methods might be a better place to focus but I understand that's very hard to do nonprofessionally as an individual thanks to the rules and laws. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for making them blow their $1k active countermeasures on your $500 missiles before…

> $1k active countermeasures Sure you didn't forget a few zeros there bud? They are currently trying to shoot down Iranian drones with $4 million Patriot missiles

>Sure you didn't forget a few zeros there bud?

The IR flare or 30mm bullets or whatever, not the whole system that fires it.

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