Frugin Flinger
Up and coming engineer, Taelan has been busy researching a new device for dealing with those pesky devanu which he has dubbed the ″Frugin Flinger″. This cunning device hurls baked frugin pods at unwitting victims. The validity of the designs has been somewhat queried by the engineering community.
“Mutter mutter … Stored kinetic energy … Mutter mutter … Slow release … Mutter mutter … Non-energetic release … blah blah … Never work … Yadda yadda” - Brandlin
Taelan does not seem to mind though and was last seen wandering off and contemplating how to build a prototype…
Tinkerer that I am, a little waxy candle self-ignited in my mind on seeing the noxious mischievousness that is the Frugin pod.
Some sketching later, I have devised a new device to keep at bay nasty things, with the power of noxious nasal nausea inducing knowings, behold! (Whips off dusty rag from artboard)
How to proceed Flinging Frugin pods
Gathering the Frugin pods, I deftly roll them in a clay paste, fired briefly at high temperature to create a brittle but stable casing. Once gathered with suitable precautions, these are then placed into the spring loaded Flinger, a hide bound funnel of two halves, with recovered strider spring at its base. Within the Flinger is the Shunter, a plate sized device for thrusting the encased pod upward and away.
Hopefully if aimed right and the spring is properly wound, the result should be the flinging of a Frugin pod to break at the feet or talons of your target after being flung!
My current success rate of flinging is about three in five, or one and a bit in two, wherein I am of course counting the pods which are flung upward, but land to close to me rather than the intended, or the wind changes direction. But as I am prepared for such nastiness! I thus count it as a success.
Those of a military bent or investigative nature like myself, can freely discuss or tinker further with this idea I am currently building in my abode outside of town, down wind.
– Taelan
Priming & Loading
So far a ratcheted pulley system to wind the coil downward, lowering the Frugin pod case into the funnel. Once set, a quick release catch lets the spring uncoil and do its work, within reasonable predictability. At best this is a one shot deterrent from being eaten, when you spy the threat from afar and you don't rush the loading process. Oh and at some point either you or some friends have come across Delgon springs from a Strider assembly to assemble the Flinger from my sketchings.
Traded a few Enuk for my present coil, so the price is steep. Then again, less skittish animals about the testing field makes for quiet tinkering.
There might be something to the angle of the Funnel, the wind and possibly the spring tension, perhaps even the weight of the Frugin pod. But that's all rather boring, I prefer working the problem till it feels solved.
– Taelan
The Frugin Flinger
Sources: The Twilight Traveller Issue 1, http://forum.worldoftwilight.com/index.php?topic=812
Author(s): Taelan