The Railgun 2 is the sequel of the first railgun that Sam Barrow presented on his website, the Powerlabs. A railgun is a linear magnetic accelerator, a device that can basically fire any small metallic object at an incredible speed, using a huge amount of electrical power.

The objective of this railgun is to, as stated on the railgun 2 page, to

successfully design and construct a linear electromagnetic accelerator capable of accelerating a lightweight payload to velocities greater than 1000m/s so that hypervelocity erosion in the rail/armature interface can be studied and a means for minimizing this erosion be investigated.

The railgun 2 is the result of 3 years of research on the subject. From what I have understood, it works by first accelerating the projectile with compressed gas, then it accelerates it more using a very strong magnetic field generated by the mean of electricity.

If you want to learn more, run to Sam's Powerlabs railgun 2 page !

The photo in this post is from the Powerlabs website and is published here with Sam's kind permission.