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How to fire a soft foam ball to a target 1 metre away ??

Hi all,

I wonder if anyone of you had constructed a robot that was able to fire using a soft foam ball ? My group had thought of using pressure valve ( aka air gun method ) as well as the tennis launcher methodology (using 2 roller placed at a certain distance apart and when the ball enters the gap, it is fired out using the frictional force of the 2 rollers) However, the former was dropped as we had no idea how to control the pressure while allowing the cannon to move about. The latter was dropped as we feared that the soft foam ball would be crushed. If anyone of you have a solution to our problem, please inform us. Thanks alot in advance !

Reply to
silencencounter
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I would have thought the air pressure idea would be easiest. You can use simple car tyre electric compressors to compress some air in a container (even a 2litre coke bottle will do - they are safe up to

100psi apparently, I wouldn't go past 60 personally) up to some chosen pressure then release that using a valve controlled by a solenoid, or even something like was used in Rex's Robot challenge (server would "pinch" the air pipe shut - low pressures should be ok with that I guess).

Thinking of Rex's Robot Challenge made me think of another way - you could have a plunger that is powered by compressed air - this plunger could just be a bicycle pump - just load the ball onto the top of the plunger, and then release the gas. Might be a bit more controlled than trying to use a soft foam ball - the gas might just cause the ball to deform and escape past the edges if you know what I mean. Some experimentation might be best here.

Reply to
Matt Dibb

Hi,

take a look at

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they use 2 rotating wheels with foam balls! IMHO the rotating wheels mechanism is the best you will find for your purpose (and will not crush the foam balls).

Artur

Reply to
Artur Merke

Just use foam wheels and you won't crush your foam ball.

BRW

Reply to
Bennet Williams

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