The challenge: design a REVOLUTIONary device that automatically feeds a stream of balls to Michael Parkhurst, a professional soccer player with the New England Revolution. Here's one Design Squad's episode that's sure to be a ball.
- 1) The Challenge (4:04)
Watch the Show
Bonus Footage
Blue Team's Process
Red Team's Process
- 1) The Challenge (4:04)
- 2) Brainstorm (4:14)
- 3) Design and Build (7:54)
- 4) Test (4:41)
- 5) Judging (6:41)
- 1) Man Down! (00:23)
- 2) Woman Down! (00:12)
- 3) Garbage Head (00:13)
- 4) We're Not Soccer Players (00:08)
- How do you make a machine that can automatically feed a soccer ball to a pro soccer player? Blue Team used spinning wheels to launch the soccer balls.
- The team decided to use hand drills to power their wheels. They were able to attach the hand drills directly to an axle that passed through the wheels.
- The base of the launcher could turn and the balls were fed through a tube. A small windshield wiper motor was used to spin the grate that fed the balls through the tube one at a time.
- The spinning wheels worked by using friction, with large patches of the wheels making contact with the soccer balls as they passed.
- Blue Team's shooter wasn't forcing the ball out fast enough. The ball needed to make more contact with the spinning wheels so they drilled new holes and moved the wheels closer together.
- Blue Team did make a soccer ball launcher that worked but they lost the challenge because they couldln't tilt it upwards or aim it as well as the red team.
- How do you make a machine that can automatically feed a soccer ball to a pro soccer player? Red Team's machine used spinning wheelbarrow wheels to launch the balls.
- Mike fit rods through the wheelbarrow wheels and attached them to a scooter motor to make them spin. This allowed the wheels to turn and launch the balls through a large tube.
- The team also built a tri-pod frame that could both rotate and tilt, allowing the ball to travel up and down and side-to-side.
- Red Team's soccer ball machine used spinning wheels to launch the soccer balls. Either too much or too little contact between the ball and wheels could have caused problems. Here's why.
- Testing showed that the ball wasn't making enough contact with the wheels. They made their frame smaller to draw the wheels closer together. This helped the ball make more contact with the wheels as it passed through the launcher.
- Red Team won the challenge because they could aim the ball and launch it more reliably and faster than Blue Team's. The client was happy with it even though it almost knocked him out.
Modify your kicking machine in one of two ways.
Build a machine that kicks balls across the floor.