Quote:
Originally Posted by bEdhEd
We're going with a winch pulled launcher that has a seat for the ball. The seat sits on top of a track, and the seat gets pulled back by a ratcheting winch, and when released, the seat moves along the track and stops abruptly at the end, therefore launching the ball. It's basically a ball puncher without the ball in front, but on top, if that makes any sense.
This design was actually inspired by the linear human catapult I saw in the "Wipeout Zone" obstacle course on the ABC show "Wipeout."
Inspiration comes from the least expected places, don't they?
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This was one of the three main designs we pursued and prototyped on 2395 but we had difficulty getting the rig to work properly.
So we have opted to be like everyone else and build a catapult, because the prototype showed the most promise and the design was the easiest for us to build (not saying that's a bad thing).
Sometimes good engineering requires following the crowd.
Though we have a few ideas that might set it apart from the others of course
As for the intake, we're not going with wheels, or the "el toro", but rather an older Dr. Joe inspired intake which is also going to have a Ninja Munkees twist
