[spiffyspleen]

As far as imparting spin goes couldn't you just have a simple design, like two parrallel sets of wheels to accelerate the tubes. If you ran one set of wheels faster than the other, it should give it some spin. I was thinking if you got it optimized enough you could even curve it around the pole by the safe zone and try to get it to land in the middle of the safe zone in front of your pegs.