pic: Air Cannon

[Beener]

I think a Robotic Air Cannon competition would be very interesting. It could involve a number of different events:

- High and low trajectory shooting at targets at different ranges
- Rate of Fire shooting to see who could build the best autoloader and to see who has the best crew served cannon for muzzle loaders
- Shooting for distance given different pressures, barrel lengths, and projectiles.
- Shooting at moving targets
- Autonomous target acquisition and engagement.
- Shooting different types of projectiles: different weights and shapes like bullet shapes vs. ball, fin stabilized or not.
- Shooting Sabot rounds to see who could achieve the highest velocity

Think about what an incredible challenge it would be just to calculate the ballistic data for high trajectory shooting.
One of my all time favorite physics labs involved shooting ball bearings from a table top to targets on the floor.

Note: There would probably be so many rules, regulations, liabilities, limitations, legislation, etc. that this will never make it past the idea stage.