Paintball-Related Physics Project?

[lemonadeX]

Hi guys,

In my second year of college now and I have a piece of physics coursework fast approaching and I need ideas for an investigation. We are permitted to do the project on anything we like, as long as it has plenty of maths/physics content to pick up the marks.

An idea I had was to incubate individual paintballs at different temperatures (from 0 degrees to 50 degrees or something) and then investigate how much force is needed to break a paintball once its been subjected to this heat (by placing weights on it).

I have the equipment to make this work but as it stands that doesn't really have enough physics in it to get a decent grade. Just wondering if anybody has any ideas on what I could base it? Note the experiment needs to be carried out in college, so I won't be able to take my marker in and start shooting at stuff

Any sensible ideas appreciated.

Cheers,

-Will

 

[sammurphy]

you could do this experiment but work out the power it has to be for it to break, on say a jersey or to maybe make it simpler a piece of card or wood.

you could record it and slow it down and use a spedometer to record the speed and use it at the same distance. if you could that is.

 

[Tom37]

i was thinking of doing this for my physics a2, can you not do the research at home? i was thinking of comparing different products eg barrels etc

 

[lemonadeX]

Naw unfortunately it needs to be done at college - A preliminary experiment and then the real thing.

Thanks Sam for the ideas, have talked to ya on MSN too which has given me some more food for thought.

-Will

 

[titoburito]

alright mate, in the same position. Don't need a project for another few months though!
With the paintballs you might find that the shells vary too much and, although you might repeat the same weight several times, we all know from playing that paint can bounce or break despite being from the same bag etc.
You might want to try something like regulator consistency at different veolcities? Would leave your investigation open for a strong section on errors plsu you get lots of numbers which satisfies the maths aspect. At our place we have a chrono, whether you do at yours i don't know but i'm sure you could set a something up so it isn't seem as dangerous in a school, either that or do it at home?

hope it helps
sTevie::C

 

[Revolt]

perhaps a good one would to be get a freak kit, one case of paint, 2 light gates

and show how the bore size effects the time it takes for the paintballs to travel

or something ;s

or you could try measuring the arch in a paintball when its fired, much like the golf ball questions youve probably done already, but its a bit hard to measure that

 

[lemonadeX]

Alright, thanks for the ideas guys, will definately consider them. Anybody else?

Cheers,

-Will

 

[Ryan(pb alexandria)]

Ive just finished a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and currently doing a further degree in Mechanical Engineering. So naturally my project were as pb related as i was allowed.

I did regulator balancing and spool valve dynamics last year but I also did loads of different projects all paintball related.

I looked at different regs and broke down there volumes, outputs, inputs, sizes etc into a set of equations to find a constant that i called the RG constant.

It was mostly theory based but if I went back to it and spend some more time with it then it would hold up about 99% in the real world. This had so much maths in it I wanted to cry. Matlab is your friend!!

I also did alot of study of fluid dynamics of flight of paintballs, it ran similar to a large study of golf balls but more based on accuracy than range.

Am not sure if you would study fluid dynamics in Physics but I know you would do some form of thermodynamics so you could mabye do pressure/volume studies...


Your paint breaking idea sounds good, but after the force is calculated you could then devise equations that incorperate.

Hardness of what the pb hits. (I would use a spring system if u cant replicate different strike scenarios)
fragility of paintball ( could be based on grade of paint)
speed at which it hits (also coverted to range)

If the paintball has spin.(this is hard to measure)

Then you would get a final equation that using all these variables will give you an answer that if a x grade paint is fired at x range and hits x part of the body will break or not.

 

[Effel]

Something to do with the breakage from different barrels and different distance?

 

[jamzi]

i was going to do breakage from different barrels and different distance and to see if it varies from C02 or compressed air, but cannot do this know cause of my college