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Originally Posted by Parker
I like the idea with two spinning wheels, like a hot wheels launcher. The important thing is that if the wheels aren't spinning at the same speed, the balls will fly off course.
Just food for thought.
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Not necessarily. If you spin both wheels at the same speed, you end up with a ball without spin coming out of the shooter. And just like a knuckleball in baseball, the ball will zig zag in any and every direction. One of the solutions we came up with is to have the two wheel mounted one on top and one on bottom. You purposly gear down the top wheel a little more than the bottom one, which results in a slight backspin. This produces a shot that is very straight, with little to no sideways curve. If you go with one wheel instead of two, i would recommend mounting the wheel on the bottom, with a solid surface above it for the ball to pass through.
Both of these ideas are direct knock-offs of baseball and softball pitching machines, so google up some images if you need a visual reference
I personally would recommend going with the two wheels, just so that you can minimize spin. With a one wheel system, whatever spin you have, be it topspin or backspin, will always be directly related to the tangencial speed of the wheel. A two wheel system has the ability to greatly reduce this relation between spin and speed.
Michael C.