In this episode, teams will be firing weapons down a range toward plywood targets. The task is to hit them from 100 meters away with their ammunition. They have the obligatory three attempts to hit the targets. Oh, the ammo...bowling balls.
Colonel Dick is having his team build an oversized pitching machine. The bowling balls will travel down a chute, from a hopper, to a pair of spinning wheels (powered by an engine). The ball will slip between the wheels and be fired forward to the targets. The upside is that this will allow them to fire up to 5 balls per turn. The downside is that this machine will have lots of moving parts, increasing the chance of something going wrong.
Hackett and crew will make an air cannon. An air
compressor will fill the barrel of the gun with air to 12psi (pounds per
square inch). To keep the air in, the end of the barrel will be capped
with a piece of latex rubber. Once the desired air pressure is reached,
a "woodpecker" (a nail on a pivot) will pop the latex allowing a quick
release of the air and the ball with it. The problem with this design will
be accuracy on test day.
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