Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Schneider
M(kicker) * V(kicker) = M(ball) * V(ball)
This is true, but the problem is if you are accelerating the kicker, F=ma and if the force being applied by the surgical tubing or spring or whatever stays constant and the weight goes up, it will decrease the acceleration. It's a take some, lose some sort of thing. If you drop your kicker and it is accelerated by gravity, more weight is better.
On the other hand, the longer you give the leg to accelerate (longer swing) the greater the velocity of the kicker. We're thinking of ways to either give the kicker as long a leg as possible or pull it back farther to give it more swing time. This decreases the forces we are playing with a bit and makes it safer, for one. When playing with these coiled or stored forces capable of kicking a ball across the field I'm kinda scared somebody's going to get smacked in the building process. Safety safety safety
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You can look at ways to keep the force at max during the full travel of the kicker's travel. With pneumatics, have a longer cylinder with most of its volume pressurized behind piston at START of kick and also use less travel of piston (more leverage & short stroke).
With bungees, preload tension in them so decent force is still being applied to kicker at end of its travel as well as at start, instead of force being zero at end of travel. Basically do what can be done to maintain full force for the full travel of the kicker.
-RRLedford