Building my own Gauss gun

Ok, after reading some stuff lately, me and my brother have decided to build our own gauss gun. From what i have seen, all gauss guns so far are only single stage (meaning that the projectile is only accelerated my a single electromagnet). I want to make a 2 or 3 stage one. I know that this requires tolerances to 1 nano-second or less, so I was going to make it computer controlled. The problem I think I am going to run into is latency on the memory, and slow processing of the program I am going to build to control it. i am only profecant at Visual Basic and I know that VB has too high of an overhead to be able to process effeciantly enough to be within tolerances. BTW, i was going to use the serial port and a PBasic board. So here are a couple of things I might need help with.

1, is there anyway to sidestep or overcome the latency in memory ? I figured I could just figure out the latency and compansate in my program.

2, is the amount of time between the actuall 'fire1, fire2, fire3' commands (the commands that I am going to use to fire the magnets in the right order at the exact right time) and the time that the magnets actually fire too much for these kinds of tolerances ?

3, Is VB going to be too slow to use. I don't know C very much at all. i can barely get 'hello world' to work :D what should I use ?

If anyone wants in on this, PM me. :)

to do your proto type.. that is to prove your timings a computer will help.. but the final device wont need a pc.. digital circuitry yes a PC no.. you could research the AXE micrcontroller.. or other micrcontrollers.. this give you programability with out the crap of a full PC..

My personal feeling is that you could build this without a pc.. just useing a handfull of logic gates per stage.. but the purpose of the exercice is it to have a 1337 gun or a cheap mass produced toy? is the goal the gun or the lesson in programming..

The lesson is kinda both. I don't want a toy. I want the lesson because I want to learn more about electric engineering and programming a IC, but the gun would be cool.. I mean imagine that:

dude 1: (cocky) "Yeah, i got an AR-15 at home"
Me: "Yeah, I built a freakin GAUSS RIFLE!"
:D

I dont want some crap gun. I want to accomplish something here that I can be proud of.
Of course I need the PC to hook up to the micro controller and program the thing. I was thinking that maybe, to help in the timings, I could put a Infrared emitter and sensor at a predetermined point along the barell, then, when the projectile breaks that infrared beam, fire the second or third magnet. That might work... Of course I would have to make sure that the emmiter and sensor were working at, like 2 gigahertz, because the projectile will be going kinda fast and only an inch long. Also, anyone know were I can find some pretty heavy duty (couple thousand watts) transistors ?
This is going to take me some time, but once I am done with it, I will have a little more knowledge and a pretty cool gun

Well you wont be useing Transistor- Transistors.. I suspect RF Power-FETS.. Wont be super Hi power.. Hi current Low Ohms.. not very Hi a power level at all.. to-120 or to-220 cases will be all that the main switching transistors will live in (oh on a lump of aluminium)

You reference clock on the toy would need to be high enough that any adjustments would be in clock cycles advanced or retarded..

Not sure about the IR Beam... During the Proto stage it will help you check your estimate of timings. In the final build will probably not needed.. only perhaps as a calibration assit

..

hmm I thinks I need to do some math.. and and a bit more study on gauss guns..

Hey, guys..
I just found links to sites where boys said that they sell gauss guns.
http://www.techass.com (litlle guns, toys)
http://www.em-gun.com (more powerful guns)