 The action of this Nerf blaster fascinates me. Load up the darts, cock it, and then pull the trigger, and one and only one dart flies. Re-cock the blaster, and it fires the next dart, and then again for the last one. No matter which barrel is loaded, one and only one dart will fire at a time. The pattern notes that the blaster uses a path for cascading a blast of compressed air. The key word here is cascading to sequentially provide a blast of air to the barrels. Let's look inside to see how this works. When you pull this handle, a plunger moves with it. This compresses the spring between the plunger and the base of the blaster grip. A catch at the base of the grip locks the plunger in place. When I pull on the trigger, the catch moves and releases the spring. This mechanism works because the catch and trigger are the same piece of plastic. It pivots on a metal pen near the center, so when the trigger is pulled back, the catch moves forward and releases the energy in the spring. The spring forces the plunger up and shoots compressed air into the dart barrel, which ejects the dart. The trigger piece returns to its original position because of this arm. It's a thin section of plastic that acts like a spring. This sets up the blaster to be cocked again. What interested me is how the blaster fires only one dart at a time. Each barrel has a spring-loaded valve. This spring pushes the valve forward if there's no dart in the barrel. If it contains a dart, then the valve is pressed against the spring. This valve's position delineates the path for the compressed air. The air enters at the bottom. An O-ring on the first barrel, empty here, prevents air from entering. So the air travels to the second valve. Because this valve is retracted, air is forced into the barrel and launches the dart. With the dart gone, the valve springs forward. This creates an air path to the third valve. This directs air only to the first loaded barrel, even if the darts are loaded randomly. Once you understand this mechanism, you can defeat it. If you put the first and second darts in partway, the valves are half-open so the air flows into the first and second barrels and, of course, into the third barrel. This splits a single blast into three weaker streams. When I pull the trigger, all three darts fire at once, but they don't travel very far. This blaster is the epitome of good engineering. As the patent notes, the air restriction mechanism is simply constructed, structurally robust, compact, automatically operated, and relatively inexpensive. I'm Bill Hammack, the Engineer Guy. Thanks.