How do the Shooters work?

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Sam N.

Pneumatic pistons by themselves (directly pushing a ball) are not enough to get the ball over the overpass when firing from the ground.

Hold on a minute! Here is a quote you should heed:

Originally Posted by Arther C Clarke

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.

I don't know how many time I heard on this very forum all through January and February that "so-and-so will never work" or "This mechanism cannot do that".

Two examples I heard over and over involve the use of vacuum to acquire and hold the ball, and pneumatic cylinders (thats the proper term, the piston is the part inside the cylinder that moves) used to shoot. I read numerous posts that said things like "you can't pick up a ball with vacuum", "the cover is too porous", "you can't develop enough holding force" as well as comments like the one you just posted.

I believe that, while well intentioned, these comments discourage innovation, and prevent people from trying new approaches. Just because you haven't figured out how to make something work doesn't mean it's impossible. If you read my earlier post in this thread, and visit the links there, you will see that not only can pneumatics alone "get the ball over the overpass", they can do it very well.

I think this point is so important, I should start a new thread.

Here is a true story that illustrates what people can do if you don't tell them it's impossible.

A young college student was working hard in an upper-level math course, for fear that he would be unable to pass. On the night before the final, he studied so long that he overslept the morning of the test. When he ran into the classroom several minutes late, he found three equations written on the blackboard. The first two went rather easily, but the third one seemed impossible. He worked frantically on it until, just ten minutes short of the deadline, he found a method that worked, and he finished the problems just as time was called. The student turned in his test paper and left. That evening he received a phone call from his professor. "Do you realize what you did on the test today?" he shouted at the student. "Oh, no," thought the student. I must not have gotten the problems right after all. "You were only supposed to do the first two problems," the professor explained. "That last one was an example of an equation that mathematicians since Einstein have been trying to solve without success. I discussed it with the class before starting the test. And you just solved it!"

http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp