The shooter Prototype that we have launches the ball in a horizontal trajectory, not in a parabolic arc and we don’t know how to fix it.
It looks like your shooter hood extends way too far out based on the picture you attached. You could try adjusting that back so the release angle of the ball is closer to around 60 degrees. What is the purpose of the second plastic sheet that someone is holding adjacent to the flywheel? It’s possible this is messing with the ball’s trajectory as well.
Are you feeding the ball in from above or below the wheel? Your picture is making me think you’re feeding in from the top. A shooter set up like this would likely not shoot in an upwards parabolic arc.
I agree. the ball will launch at an angle within a few degrees of the slope of the hood at release. Ideally it should be concentric with the shooter wheel, but in any case at the end it should also be close to parallel with the nearest point on the wheel.
We are feeding it from the bottom.
That’s still a very low angle. You should cut that down so that the ball is released at an angle closer to 30-45-60 degrees (angle will vary depending on where you decide to shoot from)
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Gotcha. Thanks for the extra pic! Like @dydx said, try the lower release angle. May I ask what motor and gear reduction you’re running your shooter off of, and what the compression of the ball is? Those things might also be at fault, but definitely play around with the hood angle first before you make any other changes.
I should try a larger angle because my release angle is too low?
When you mention degrees, are you measuring it from the vertical or horizontal?
I’d recommend using a calculator of some sort to figure out around what you want your angle to be based on motor wheel and target distance.
I’ve found this one to be pretty nice. Flywheel Calculator
Horizontal
Sorry, I think I got some terms switched up. I mean that you should alter your hood such that it releases the ball sooner.
Angle X is what we’re talking about when we say your release angle should be X degrees. It’s measure from the x-axis in the clockwise direction when you’re looking at the shooter with the goal to your right.
What happens if you tilt the whole assembly back changing the release angle? also, a video would help.
Edoga
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Start by cutting 2in off the top outer end of the polycarbonate and work your way back
One of our avid golfer mentors suggested that spin direction made a difference, and at first that sounded like BS to me. We ran our prototype shooter with its intended back spin and then ran it upside down to impart a top spin. We got VERY different trajectories. The back spin shooter gives a much flatter trajectory.
We got a nice amount of backspin on our prototype yesterday and it resulted in our ball going about 50ft (at full power). I definitely recommend trying to get some backspin worked into your shooter
You need to cut your hood back to about 3/4 of the way up. Check out this video from 2016 Swamp Thing as their hood was adjustable but shows the position of the hood in context of their flywheel.
we had the same problem when we finally got the thing built Wednesday…so we just tilted the whole thing back, and the ball went up. The folks involved with building it, had never made a ball fly before, so didn’t really know which way it would come out. Now we all know.
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