3336 Catapult Prototype

[Hoffer5236]

Originally Posted by Aroki

We had success with our purely pneumatic catapult prototype. The key is using a lever and pulling down on the opposite side of the catapult instead of pushing up; this gives it more speed and with pneumatics you have power to spare.

We tried putting our cylinders on the opposite end of the fulcrum, but it made our length too significant to consider it being an option. Instead, we put the pistons (two 1.5in cylinders) on the same side as the basket with the ball. This decreased our length and seemed to give us some more power because pistons push with more force. The only problem that we ran into was that when the pistons were beginning to push up, the angle they were pushing at decreased any added force we had from leverage, giving us a much slower start.
This video shows our progression with the catapult.
http://youtu.be/r-9v9loC2As