Pneumatic Ball Puncher

[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.