Watch A Homemade Coilgun Destroy A Laptop

Pretty engineering cool but...
Less velocity and power than an arrow from a simple primitive bow and the projectiles seem to be striking sideways in some cases.
Del

I agree. An interesting engineering toy with little impact. Proof of the less energy per projectile is the cloth back stop. Also the claimed velocity is almost an order of magnitude smaller than a high velocity air rifle.

I would've added some efficiency measurements and calculations. I suspect that most of the power goes into making the coils warm and not hurling the iron projectiles. I also suspect that the five apparently equal dimension coils rob the projectile of some of its energy. The animation shows exactly my point. Only the first coil accelerates the projectile. The following coils grab and release the projectile at the same velocity. Then again this is a POPSCI animation and video. They may not have the budget or understanding of acceleration.

Something to stabilize the flight of the projectiles would have been a good idea, too.

I would say the tech for hand held coil guns is well in its infancy still. Comparing this prototype to any basic by today's standards handgun is like comparing a late 1700's black powder muzzle loaded musket that shot rough round balls to a modern hunting rifle in terms of power and accuracy.

If they increased the energy transfer by 2X at most and dropped the projectile down to the size and mass similar to that of a common bullet of similar caliber I would say that for sure I would not want to get shot with it!

Black powder muzzle velocities were/are much faster at throwing much heavier and denser rounds. I do agree that this is the infancy of hand held coil guns. As such a comparison to the 1400 era handgonne might be more valid. Still these are expected to have a muzzle velocity above 1000 fps. That is the ones that did not explode.