Pedal Powered Tennis Ball Launcher

Intro: Pedal Powered Tennis Ball Launcher

Both cleanly powered and built from 2 recycled bicycles, scrap steel and wood, leaking 5 gallon water jug and a lacross stick, our pedal powered tennis ball launcher was created as a unique entry for the innovate or die pedal powered machine contest.
It allows players varying in skill levels to practice to be better at both tennis and cycling. The launcher is towed to the court on its built-in bicycle trailer. A bike is secured to it and functions to drive the device. Pedaling the cycle as one would on a trainer drives the two launcher wheels. The cyclist then aims using the bike handlebars to and pulls the lever to launch balls to the hitter.

Check out the High Speed Videos (Slow Motion) at 300fps and 600fps of the launcher in action, and other information about the launcher and it's construction:
http://danielbauen.com/make/index.php/pedal-powered-tennis-ball-launcher/

Construction Detail Video:

Comments

[gmendez3]

hahaha amazing Bikemachine! It´s so smart!

[CTBlaze]

Like it

[Blaise_Gauba]

Ingenious! Very impressive!

[urchit]

meraviglioso very very good

[fozzy13]

Awesome idea, and great video!

[deqwer]

This is great can you post a instructables?

[rocketman221]

Damn metacafe won't let me watch the video. Could you upload the video file to instructables or something.

[mfarnawany]

WOuld it be possible to post 4 closer up pictures? I was interested in trying to build this. 1. Top Down - Real Wheel of Bike over Drive train 2. Side Shot - From the Outside, Two Wheels doing the launching 3. Inside Shot - Inside Show w/out attached bike of the same 4. Any Shot - SOme kind of shot of the Water Jug ball feed apparatus. Don't know if I can build it, but wouldn't mind trying. Thanks

[engineerable]

Thanks for the interest! I will be posting better pictures and closeup video on my website soon, and I will let you know.

[controlfreak04]

what is your website?

[engineerable]

http://danielbauen.com/pedalpoweredtennis/

[Kalipa]

It's really awesome and clever, but, if you have a person that can manpower the machine, why not just have him throw the balls back at you??

[ALogan97]

what if they don't have hands?

[controlfreak04]

hy there, honestly your work is awesome! there are some questions...

1)how do you attach the lever with the cycle?
2)what material that makes the tennis ball injected one at a time?

[northcoastnomad]

*applauds*
Bravo my friend, this is truly a work of geniousness.
By the way, have you come up with an official name for this mechanism?

[bassclarinet23]

Awesome! Do you think it is possible to make one strong enough to launch softballs?

[Illamadi]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make a rugby ball launcher and what mechanism to use in order to propell it ?

[Martian925]

Although kind of Rube-Goldberg-ish and useless (why not just bring another racquet and hit the balls to your partner?!), very clever engineering and cool video.

[thepaul93]

very nice

[killerkorn]

thats awesome. and yea instructables can be quite easy to make and dont take that long to make so you should try posting up how to make one of these AMAZING contraptions.