[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Scott Kozutsky

This is an amazing opportunity to make plywood ghetto prototypes and do some good ol' fashioned testing. The three main things that peoples are suggesting are catapults, slingshots, hammers (all easy to prototype) and wheeled shooters (more difficult but doable).

I think that a catapult would work best in this application but have no real experience (and neither does anyone else as far as I'm aware). Unless someone here can point to an off-season project they've done I would take everything with a large grain of salt.

I did a catapult a few years back for rebound, with our initial prototype we saw potential because it did give the arch but it isn't what would be needed for this project which is more speed.

and as for a slingshot i know people (my team included) made kickers that were a piece of lexan held back and then released to exert a force to kick the soccer balls.