Future Work

We would recommend the process of balancing the wheels, ideally starting with more balanced wheels. If within budget, we would recommend the purchase of new wheels that are of higher quality with greater concentricity in the hub. This will reduce the vibration in the system. We would also recommend designing an improved structure that involves damping of the vibration and that is more resistant to bending. This could be achieved by adding dampers to the structure to absorb vibrations and potentially change the resonant frequency of the structure. Resistance to bending could be increased by increasing the wall thickness of the legs of the structure or using a stiffer material (such as steel). It could also be achieved by moving some of the legs—either placing them in the plane that the structure twists, providing resistance to the twisting force, or placing them wider, reducing the moment that the vibration exerts on the structure.

To improve the portability of the structure, we would add a transport wheel to the front of the launcher. This would allow it to be tipped over and rolled like a wheelbarrow, making it easier to move around by an operator. We would also design the electronics to require minimal connections to be made to allow them to attach and detach from the system easily.

To reduce the number of operators, we would house our electronic system to only use a switch and a dial on a panel to keep the control system simple.  We would also reprogram our feed system to reach the wheels so the operator does not need to manually feed the ball into the system. If we were able to purchase a new battery, we would, to increase the robustness of our electrical system and eliminate the need for frequent battery swaps.  

When initially ideating for the football launcher, we envisioned a system in which the user could load multiple footballs into the launcher at once. While we decided that this "hopper" was out of the scope of our project, we found that it would be a useful feature to further meet our design requirements.

Another feature that would improve our launcher would be wheel covers. These would sit outside the wheels and keep anything from getting caught in the wheels while they are spinning. They would be a useful safety feature to include in future designs and would put the operator at ease while they use the machine. 

This project has facilitated excellent practice in, and learning about effective mechanical design. We were able to practice teaming, project organization and management, scoping, practical mechanical analysis, documentation, and fabrication. One of our key takeaways is to check the design and manufacturing limitations on COTS parts. We made the assumption that our wheels were sufficient because they were COTS, and verified this assumption with minimal testing, reserch, and analysis. If we had taken the time to perform this critical thinking, we could have determined the wheels were not applicable to our design prior to purchasing and designing our system around them. If we had done this, we could have met more of our functional requirments and had a higher performing football launcher. 

Another key takeaway is the importance of justification, analysis, and documentation. We performed analysis on every part, but every part we set aside to analyze using detailed FEA and designed with factors of safety in mind met or exceeded performance requirments. This is a testament to the increased design though and effectiveness FEA facilitates. 

In essence, our primary takeaway is to assume as little as possible, verify as much as possible, and do as much math and FEA as possible prior to manufacturing.