I'm enjoying my son's Engineering class

[tarafied1]

He is a sophomore at WKU and going for a mechanical engineering degree. His instructor for ME176 (Design) has them build stuff and compete with each other. he gives them specific limits and goals. Anyway, this project was to build a tennis ball cannon that would fit in a 2'x2'x2' cube and shoot at least 15'. The instructor will supply the air pressure and the tennis balls. They have to basically play Tic Tac Toe and hit three squares for bonus points. The one that meets the goals at the lowest cost wins but they all get graded on design, proof of concept and performance. Tomorrow is proof of concept day so tonight we were practicing in the garage adusting pressure, barrel length etc.
It's fun!

 

[3175375]

we just used two tennis ball cans, poked holes in between them and poured lighter fluid in the bottom one. It was called a Polish cannon. Sometimes the tennis balls came out of the tube on fire.... More fun!

 

[tarafied1]

we just used two tennis ball cans, poked holes in between them and poured lighter fluid in the bottom one. It was called a Polish cannon. Sometimes the tennis balls came out of the tube on fire.... More fun!

I think the instructor was trying to avoid flaming tennis balls flying around the classroom/shop!

 

[tarafied1]

so my some took some pictures of the competition today. There was only one other pneumatic cannon. They were unsuccessful though. They used a 3" tube for a barrel. There were two spring loaded type (they both worked pretty well) and two trebuchet type. Only one of those worked. My son's hit the targets each test fire and made lots of noise. I'd say it was success.