Alright, good news. The design is finalized, the parts are on their way in and with any luck, the launcher will be ready to go by the end of the week.

Alex and Trevor have revised the final design. Originally, the ball was going to be launched by a solenoid motor. They've decided to go with a pressure system instead. A bike pump hooked into a 2L bottle attached to a solenoid valve, controlled by an Arduino board (perhaps a bit of overkill, no?). The code is being finalized, and should be posted soon.

The part design for the launcher isn't going to change much, the dimensions will be altered to accommodate the side of the solenoid valve, other than that, the chute is still the same.

At the end of all this, we will have an easy-to-use launcher that can be used to fire lightweight projectiles a decent distance.

Here are a few shots of the model after it was "finalized". It looks a lot fancier now!