New Poll on What Are You Using

[mrnoble]

We've tested a ballista and are building a compound bow in addition to the shooter types listed. There's still time before final decisions need to be made.

[geomapguy]

We tested a winch-catapult design but felt going with a motorized design similar to Boom Done was a better route.

[blazeflipper]

My team has been building a pneumatic shooter the past couple days. We had been running into the problem of not enough air to the cylinders to get the height needed. Today we added air tanks after the solenoids and lowered the mounting point for the two four inch long pistons and we had enough power to break a 2 by 4 in half when we dry fired. If your team is thinking about pneumatic I would highly recommend it, if you set it up correctly it has more power than you could ever need.

[bEdhEd]

We're going with a winch pulled launcher that has a seat for the ball. The seat sits on top of a track, and the seat gets pulled back by a ratcheting winch, and when released, the seat moves along the track and stops abruptly at the end, therefore launching the ball. It's basically a ball puncher without the ball in front, but on top, if that makes any sense.

The track is on a pivot to allow for loading from the back, and aiming.

Just imagine an aircraft carrier catapult, or a crossbow, and you'll probably get what I mean.

The attachment shows a pic of an aircraft carrier catapult, and it follows the same idea.

This design was actually inspired by the linear human catapult I saw in the "Wipeout Zone" obstacle course on the ABC show "Wipeout."

Inspiration comes from the least expected places, don't they?

[GarrettF2395]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

We're going with a winch pulled launcher that has a seat for the ball. The seat sits on top of a track, and the seat gets pulled back by a ratcheting winch, and when released, the seat moves along the track and stops abruptly at the end, therefore launching the ball. It's basically a ball puncher without the ball in front, but on top, if that makes any sense.

This design was actually inspired by the linear human catapult I saw in the "Wipeout Zone" obstacle course on the ABC show "Wipeout."

Inspiration comes from the least expected places, don't they?

This was one of the three main designs we pursued and prototyped on 2395 but we had difficulty getting the rig to work properly.
So we have opted to be like everyone else and build a catapult, because the prototype showed the most promise and the design was the easiest for us to build (not saying that's a bad thing).

Sometimes good engineering requires following the crowd.
Though we have a few ideas that might set it apart from the others of course

As for the intake, we're not going with wheels, or the "el toro", but rather an older Dr. Joe inspired intake which is also going to have a Ninja Munkees twist

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by GarrettF2395

This was one of the three main designs we pursued and prototyped on 2395 but we had difficulty getting the rig to work properly.
So we have opted to be like everyone else and build a catapult, because the prototype showed the most promise and the design was the easiest for us to build (not saying that's a bad thing).

Sometimes good engineering requires following the crowd.
Though we have a few ideas that might set it apart from the others of course

As for the intake, we're not going with wheels, or the "el toro", but rather an older Dr. Joe inspired intake which is also going to have a Ninja Munkees twist

Our team is the opposite, I guess. Our puncher works better than the catapults we've tried.

[EricDrost]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

Our team is the opposite, I guess. Our puncher works better than the catapults we've tried.

Because your puncher has a fairly large surface area contacting the ball. That's the trick I think a lot of puncher prototypes are missing.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

Because your puncher has a fairly large surface area contacting the ball. That's the trick I think a lot of puncher prototypes are missing.

I think you're right on that. The smaller surface areas put more energy into deforming the ball at a smaller point, rather than spreading it out on a larger surface for a more efficient push that deforms the ball less and more evenly, thus dedicating more energy to the launch.