Some of my students decided to build a magnetic accelerator as part of their project work. It was interesting for them but ultimately frustrating as there was very limited money available and health and safety said it had to be pretty harmless.
My interest was kindled though and research, YouTube and too much eBay later here we are, half way through lots of other projects that will enable me to complete this first one.
Very much a work in progress and not likely to turn into anything tangible for a little while yet.

30/10/2019: And here we are about 18 months after the original student project and we have another one.

The original project was a success in that they were able to fire 2p coins (we’re in the UK) however there were more holes and blind luck in the project that substance. Suffice to say I will be pushing the current group for more research, thinking and measurements as they progress.

Summed up my research says it is easy to build a coil gun that works, it’s hard to build one that works well.

I have been doing a little shopping prior to some proof of concept experiments so more updates when these parts arrive and I have had time to play

1/11/2019: My attempt at a proof of concept or Coil Gun V0.1

8/11/2019: The first attempt at something a little more formal and repeatable