I designed and fabricated a football launcher in my Mechanical Design course as a group project. My focus on this project was the launching system design, analysis, and fabrication. The launching system needed to propel the ball forward, impart a torque to achieve a spiral, and withstand the dynamic forces of launch. The system was designed using SOLIDWORKS and analyzed through hand calculations and SOLIDWORKS FEA. Important features of the launching system include the tilted wheels which give the football the spiral and the adjustable distance between the wheels, allowing for different size footballs to be launched. I fabricated the bearing blocks and the mounting infrastructure using a manual mill.
