[EricH]

Originally Posted by Urban Hawk

also i think you should angle the fan slightly so it provides some extra downward force and it would probably help to deflect the balls better then putting the fan horizontal because the balls would practically be in the trailer by the time it hits the wind from the horizontal fan while the angled fan should hit the ball while it is still further up and more of a chance to stop it from going in since the balls are mainly going to be lobbed in.

Sorry, but Q&A got to that one pretty quickly when it was brought up. http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11025

Yeah, it's intended to deflect incoming moon rocks. But I can almost guarantee you that at least one inspector per event will not allow the up-angle. (Most likely the lead inspector, but could be another one.) It's going to be really hard to build a deflection system that works using air jets, because it has to be horizontal. That said, anyone who does a fully legal one deserves at least a Xerox Creativity Award.