The Hacksmith: Swinging Like Spiderman

2020-03-31 | By The Hacksmith

License: See Original Project

Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been a large part of the Hacksmith Industries’ Make it Real series over the last several years. The Hacksmith team has put together a number of Marvel projects — featured on Maker.io — from the Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Spider-Man.

It’s been a while since The Hacksmith team has created a Spider-Man project. In 2017, Hacksmith Industries made electromagnetic climbing clamps to recreate Spider-Man’s wall-sticking ability. Now, they’re tackling one of Spider-Man’s most iconic abilities — web-slinging. See a recreation of Spider-Man’s swinging ability in the video below!

How Does it Work?

The web-slingers are based on The Hacksmith’s design for the grappling hook gun from Just Cause. This version has two grappling hooks, one for each hand. Each grappling glove is controlled by an Arduino Nano. There are sensors on each hand to launch and release the grappling hooks that can be triggered by hitting switches on the gloves. These switches trigger when the users’ hand is in the same position Spider-Man uses to release his webs.

The wearer can use these gloves to shoot a grappling hook that wraps around something and shoot another hook to another grappling point while swinging. They can then release the rope and continue swinging along. It may not look as smooth as when Spider-Man does it, but without the proportional strength of a spider, it’s to be expected.

You can see the finer details in the circuit diagram below.

Schematic and BOM

More Hacksmith Creations from the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Check out more Marvel projects created by Hacksmith Industries below!

You can also find more videos from the Flying Like Iron Man and Thor’s Hammers series on the Hacksmith’s YouTube channel.