So I am pretty much set on a pneumatic catapult, I see reasons for not doing it, but this will be lighter than a slip gear. But is there a strongest way so i can get really far with a small amount of cylinders (1-2 would be perfect). Also, the smaller the better.
I would be really worried about running out of air. You only get so many uses out of a reservoir before it runs out.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I think you’ll find that at higher levels of competition, you could be overwhelmed at the end of the match because you won’t be able to launch the stars or cubes back over.
I have the same conflict as you. I found that it was better to make a CAD design for both methods, and test out the one which was most cheap and readily available, then if that did not work efficiently, test out the other design.
link text this is probably the best idea for using pneumatics in a launcher. You could also use pneumatics to assist the elastics in launching.#303
In what way would it be lighter than a slip gear? With all of the pneumatic components it will be much heavier.
Check this video for an example pneumatic launcher:
I think what the OP meant by “lighter” was that you need less stuff on the launcher itself, which might be useful if you’re trying to incorporate a lift/launch hybrid. But @ThunderRobotics is right, overall the tanks make the robot much heavier with pneumatics.
Question, how heavy were those beach balls?
I think it could be possible, and could shoot them insanely fast… You could actually use two reservoirs to increase how many times you could use them.
How powerful can pneumatics be?
I really don’t see this as a viable option, seeing as how many times you’re going to be throwing games objects back and forth in this game. Unless your strategy is to hoard and score violently at the end, but I don’t think pneumatics is fast enough for that.
Remember that most of these teams in Toss Up used 4 pistons and 5-6 reservoirs to throw a .85 pound object. We now need to throw 1.67 pound objects with only the use of 2 reservoirs. If you built it right, you could probably throw a star multiple times by using a 2 cylinder pneumatic catapult (to conserve air), But I doubt you would throw much further than a few feet when trying to throw the heavier cube. I could see a hybrid launcher being useful this year though. Maybe ones that only use the pneumatic aid when throwing a cube or multiple objects and maybe to speed up the reload process.
Um, I don’t know about that. We used 2 pistons and 2 reservoirs just fine, as did most other teams. I don’t remember ever seeing a team with more than four reservoirs.