Ping Pong Shooter

Hi! This is my first thread on Vex. Anyway, I have built a ping pong shooting robot very much like the Vex Triplet that was built for Radio Shack. Everything is working fine except the actual shooting mechanism. I have had to use an alternate shooting method because the motor isn’t fast enough, so I am using two rubber bands attached to a metal cam. It doesn’t shoot very far (only 2 feet). What suggestions do you have that will shoot ping pong balls further? Thanks for the help.

Post some pictures.

Yes, please post some pictures first then we can give you a deffinite solution. But some ideas you may want to consider are experimenting with gear ratios, maybe use a powerful spring, maybe ahave a rotating arm with a ping pong paddle hit the balls, or any other things you can think of.

I’d use a piece of flexible metal. It can then be pulled down by the motor and released. Thats how I built my version a while back. (gear the shooting part with more torque to help pull back the metal)

i just used rubber bands when i made mine. and i think the VEXlabs triplet bot used the rubber links to make the spring mechanism.

rubber bands work, but not continuously

Yeah sorry i forgot to post some pictures. Here they are.

The forum wont let me post more than 100 kb so i have to do multiple posts :frowning:
Robot.JPG

Pic 2!!!
Shooter.JPG

Pic 3!!!
Shooter 2.JPG

Picture 4!!!1
Shooter 3.JPG

Picture 5!!!
Ball.JPG

Last picture is on the intake rollers. I hope these are enough to show what it looks like. Basically i have the motor spin a piece of metal that pulls down the metal, and when the motor finishes rotating it flips the piece back up hitting the ball. I have tried variations of this and have even tried moving the ball up and down. Any other suggestions? Thanks for the responses. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
Intake.JPG

Would you mind deleting those posts and combining them into one? Posting continuously like that clogs the thread and makes it less readable :slight_smile:

It looks neat though! Good job :wink:

I tried to put it all into one post, but it wouldn’t let me attach more than 100kb, and each picture was at least 70kb. I didn’t know any other way to post all of the pictures. Sorry. :frowning:

Try uploading them to imageshack and posting links to the pictures. :slight_smile:

As for pictures upload them to the gallery next time.

For the robot about the only thing I can think of is using more rubber bands. The only other thing would be to completely redesign it to use a spring or something else.

Okay I have learned my lesson. Next time I will upload it to the gallery. As far as my robot goes, i have gotten it to shoot the ping pong ball a good 10 to 15 feet using a motor to bend back and release a plastic spoon. I got this idea off a video I saw on the internet. Thank you all for all your help and suggestions!!!
:slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

I built one of these as soon as I got my kit. Mine could shoot it a good 15’ or more depending on how tight you got the rubber bands.
this is how i got it to launch them

and this is what it looked like.

and this is what it looked like.

Great Job!!! I like the Animated GIF…