Adjustable Pneumatic Catapult

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

Compressed gas (air) coupled with an “assist” spring used as the energy source for the catapult. Power is set by the amount of pressurized gas in the upper cylinder chamber prior to pulling the arm back.

Launch angle is varied by using a proximity sensor that triggers a solenoid valve to choke or restrict the cylinders exhaust port. Also, there is a hard stop pin that can be set from -22.5 deg to 7.5 deg in lieu of the solenoid braking. For high energy scenarios a combination of fully restricted exhaust and the hard stop pin are used.

Pivoting electromagnets, on an adjustable assembly, are used for the release mechanism.

Electronics modeled are not correct for the application but helped with the wiring layout during design.

Tablet and pan/tilt were replaced with a GoPro and smaller pan/tilt in the actual application.