Quote:
Originally Posted by LH Machinist
The pneumatic trick is called blocking the cylinder. You essentially use two pistons, one large and one small whereas the smaller cylinder acts as a release mechanism. The larger cylinder is activated, but it cannot move because the smaller cylinder is blocking its movement. When the smaller cylinder is moved it unblocks the large cylinder. The resultant force of the large cylinder is tremendous.
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I think that our team used this in 2010. We didn't use the smaller cylinder to directly block the larger one but we had a latch that would hold our kicker back until that smaller cylinder released it. We would activate the solenoid to let air flow into the larger piston but it wouldn't extend due to the latch. Then releasing it we got a fairly good kick since the air was already through the solenoid.
Forgive me if I have the system wrong, it was my (and the team's) rookie year. I definitely didn't understand what was going on yet.