Here at Nighthawk Robotics Club, we believe in exploring every opportunity for innovation!
Inspired by our own creative minds and the thoughts expressed by others, we have developed a prototype for launching ringles in this year’s game Tipping Point.
The ringle launcher in question uses the superior power of a Vex hinge to provide the pivoting mechanism necessary for our catapult. A formation of standoffs, and the usage of a pillow bearing allows the launcher to both grapple onto ringles, and remain inside of the starting 18x18x18 constraint posed in the Vex Tipping Point game manual.
Of course, the most necessary question for every launcher is the number of rubber bands. Indeed, the correct rubber bands, materials, quantity, quality, brand, size, and color is absolutely critical to the performance of a launcher. We experimented with various quantities of rubber bands in order to get this mechanism to a performing point.
Unfortunately, we believe that the design is far too game-breaking to release a complete and unrestrained design for this launcher. As such, we will not be releasing the number of rubber bands at this time. We leave it for the reader to follow the engineering design process and reach their own conclusions.
Some might debate the capabilities of such a ringle launcher. Some might decide that the design would not be deserving of going through the design process. To these people, we merely link a relevant comment.
Please enjoy this prototype robot mechanism from team 569A. We are excited to see how this design progress throughout the season.
And yes, we have made it more than once. 
