Shooting balls (engineering involved)

oniian

So I find myself in need of a miniature golf course hole. I already have the design I want to do in my head. The layout goes something like this. The first section will be a simple layout of a fairway with a hole at the far end. here is where it gets tricky, I want to then have the golf ball propelled upwards into some pvc piping that will go up three feet before becoming a U-bend that will drop the ball off into a home-made plinko board (think "The price is right") which will randomize where the ball ends up on the second stage of the hole, which the actual hole on the second stage will be rotating around in a circle. (I am not sure whether I am going to have a circle of the course, which the hole is on, rotating around or have a stationary hole surrounded by a an "O" shaped section of the course rotating around the hole)

I figure my options for propelling the ball into the air to be either use a spring like mechanism or to use CO2 in a paint ball gun like fashion to push the ball into the air.

The spring option seems easiest but I also want to design it were the mechanism used to propel the ball would be self-resetting so it does not have to be reset each time.

The paint ball gun-esque option probably wouldn't have worry to much about self-resetting if it used a hair trigger but then again I am not that familiar with paint ball guns and it would take more effort to design something to release the CO2 without using too much out or letting all out at once.

Any ideas or suggestion?

embrik

Some sort of vacuum? Are you going to be actually constructing this IRL?

deke55555

Make the first hole higher than the second one, use cheap & abundant gravity for your fuel source.

(if you're restricted to a flat area, build up the first hole as much as possible & make the first shot be a ramp shot up for some extra elevation)

oniian

But with a vacuum I probably would need an enclosure that might negate people being able to hit the ball into the first hole. And yes this will be actually built.

Gravity is my fall back plan. It doesn't have the cool factor of actually launching the ball in the air, though the gravity method applies more readily to the K.I.S.S. principle.


Edit: plus a vacuum seems too noisy for my tastes.

Doc

It'll be tough to make compressed air do what you are trying to do. A solenoid would work better, as you can make it strike the ball with a predictable amount of force every time, and it uses electricity instead of dealing with an air compressor.

oniian

Hmm, sounds interesting Doc. Would you be thinking about a pneumatic solenoid or a hydraulic solenoid and do you have an specific example like a certain device you can point me toward?

Doc

oniian wrote: »

Hmm, sounds interesting Doc. Would you be thinking about a pneumatic solenoid or a hydraulic solenoid and do you have an specific example like a certain device you can point me toward?

uh, electric? I don't have a whole lot of experience working with linear solenoids, so you'll be on your own a bit on that one.

Solenoids take an electrical current and turn it into movement. Linear solenoids work kind of like a piston. Mount it under the hole where the ball is, apply the correct current, and the piston will shoot up and hit the ball.

whuppins

Jesus Christ, this sounds like the craziest mini golf hole ever created. Fluid dynamics? CO2? Linear solenoids? Plinko?

Also, this thread sounds more about sucking balls than shooting them. Which is a shame, because you could have titled the thread "help me suck balls".

Doc

whuppins wrote: »

Jesus Christ, this sounds like the craziest mini golf hole ever created. Fluid dynamics? CO2? Linear solenoids? Plinko?

Also, this thread sounds more about sucking balls than shooting them. Which is a shame, because you could have titled the thread "help me suck balls".

The reason I thought of a linear solenoid is because that's what they use (I think) in those automatic golf ball putt returners.

darkgrue

oniian wrote: »

I want to then have the golf ball propelled upwards into some pvc piping that will go up three feet before becoming a U-bend that will drop the ball off into a home-made plinko board (think "The price is right") which will randomize where the ball ends up on the second stage of the hole

Have you considered a belt (or bucket) conveyor or an Archimedean screw?

I've seen both used in mini-golf arrangements, and they're pretty simple and reliable for moving balls up. They also are a bit more forgiving than something that actually launches or sucks a ball (but might not be quite as cool). They're easy to build too.

If you make your conveyance transparent, and perhaps more Rube Goldberg than it needs to be to actually accomplish its task, it can add a lot of visual style too.

Doc

Yeah, an Archimedes's screw would be a really cool way to do it. Kind of hard to just make, though.

Edit: scratch that. Get a some clear, flexible pipe and wrap it around a pole. That was easy.

Improvolone

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&resnum=0&q=bernoulli's+principle+ball&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Perhaps something more along those lines. While the screw or the bucket system would totally work, you're right, you wouldn't get the wow factor. You could also do something really nifty and fake it.
For instance...

Hole 1 is a length of runway with a giant water hazard. You can either shoot over the ramp and loose the ball, or sink it into a cup on the first area. This cup leads to some botomless pit, and it activates a switch. This switch makes a new ball pop out from a hidden location on the other side of the hazard.

Thus, they think their ball teleported.

Teleportation is cooler than comprssed air.

wakeboarderblunt

I have made a Plinko mini golf hole before, seriously. Not as fancy as you planned, but essentially it was a plexiglass box around 2'x2'x3', an opening in the front that led to a ramp up the bottom-back of the box, over to the top- front and into the plinko plane. it would just drop into a hole (if you shot it right)

The fun about it is that it would be up to the golfer to position the ball on the plinko board with his ramp approach, and no shot would be the same.

  _______
//       O |
|       |= |
|       |   |
|       |= |
|      |   |
|       |= |
|       |_ |
|
\\_______  O  <--- Ball

kevbot

You could use a fast, long stroke linear solenoid with a microswitch on top of it to throw the ball upwards. The ball falls on to the microswitch and engages the solenoid, which pushes the ball upwards, keeping the switch depressed. Once the solenoid hits the top of its stroke the ball keeps going upwards, opening the switch and letting the solenoid retract. The only thing you might run in to is that the ball has to be accelerating the whole time in order to keep the switch depressed.

You should be able to find or build a solenoid that'd work pretty easily (if you're in Canada try Princess Auto's surplus section). You could always build something that worked similarly using compressed air, an air cylinder and an electric air valve.

I used something like this in a goldberg machine about 8 years ago.





Come to think of it I believe this is similar to how pinball bumpers work.

tac

You could try two spinning wheels for a simple ball launching mechanism.
Similar to a pitching machine: