Toy Ball Cannon

WHAT

• Design a lightweight, portable toy cannon that fires non-lethal, ball-shaped projectiles at a moving target.

• Fully autonomous operation except for  the initial loading of the projectiles into the cannon body.

• Cannon shall hit the target moving at 0.5m/s from a distance of 5-15ft away at least 1x per firing cycle (30 balls).

• Capable of 360-degree target tracking based on color detection.

HOW

• Adapted parts stripped from a Nerf Rival Nemesis blaster into the designs of various subsystems: microservo-powered hopper funneling, conveyor belt feeding, and flywheel launching.

• Designed a rotating cannon base powered by a stepper motor via an internal gear train to a lazy susan bearing.

• Optimized cost of mechanical assemblies through design for rapid prototyping and COTS hardware standardization, allocating more budget to electrical components.

• Led creation of technical presentations, reports, and design review poster. 

RESULTS

• Achieved a successful target hit rate with the Raspberry Pi AI Camera's frame rate of 30+ FPS coupled with firing rate of 30 balls (hopper's capacity) in under 5s.

• Live demonstration of synchronous tracking and firing actuation capabilities (without ammunition) at 2026 Engineering Annual Design Review.

  • Two functionalities: manual operation where the user controls pitch, yaw, firing rate; and fully autonomous operation.