Pneumatic Ball Puncher

[Brandon Zalinsky]

Originally Posted by themccannman

I seriously doubt that. Maybe pneumatics attached to a lever arm to throw the ball, but absolutely not to punch it.

Mark my words.

One cylinder got our team an undefeated qualifications in 2008. I'm loving your "absolutely not" certainty- our punch prototype shoots 25 feet. I repeat my guarantee- at least one team on Einstein will have a linear pneumatic punch shooter.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Brandon Zalinsky

our punch prototype shoots 25 feet

Are you using the cylinder end cap as the hard stop?

[martin417]

I was about to get up on my soapbox, but the topic seemed so familiar that I looked at some of my old posts and found this one from 2008.

The post atarts with this quote:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."--Arthur C. Clarke

When you act as an expert and tell people that that "it wont wok", you are not inspiring them, you are preventing them from exploring and learning.

By the way, after that post was made, the team was invited to attend championships, played in the quarterfinals there, and won the Xerox creativity award.

Please read the post and think before you stifle creativity.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Brandon Zalinsky

Mark my words.

One cylinder got our team an undefeated qualifications in 2008. I'm loving your "absolutely not" certainty- our punch prototype shoots 25 feet. I repeat my guarantee- at least one team on Einstein will have a linear pneumatic punch shooter.

The only way you could get a decent shot is if you manually stopped the piston from extending, and allowed the pressure to evacuate form the decompressing side before releasing it. I'm not even sure if that's legal though.

[Wren Hensgen]

With regards to allowing the pressure to evacuate, why bother? Just leave the top of the cylinder disconnected, and allow the weight of the rod to return it to rest when the solenoid is fired.

[arizonafoxx]

I think some people might want to look at some of the soccer kickers from 2010. Many of the kickers that year were surgical tubing assisted by pneumatics. Kicker was drawn back and latched with pneumatics which stretched the surgical tubing. Then the solenoids were actuated in the other direction and then the latch was released. It was discovered that lots of energy was stored and released this way. So I tend to agree that there is a possibility that a punch using pneumatics could end up on Einstein.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by themccannman

The only way you could get a decent shot is if you manually stopped the piston from extending, and allowed the pressure to evacuate form the decompressing side before releasing it. I'm not even sure if that's legal though.

It was legal in 2010 and a fairly popular method of powering kickers.