how a paintball marker works (math project)

[Ali]

lol but we're going of his topic
if its for maths this is what you need to put down:
1 fairy tells 5 spirits to load 1 ball on to 1 catapult and then 2 fairys let the catapult go shooting the paintball down the barrel at 300fps.
see now thats maths.

i made this up as i went

 

[eLLiot-]

A little man inside the gun kick the living **** out of the ball, and pop theres your paintball

 

[uk killer]

lol but we're going of his topic
if its for maths this is what you need to put down:
1 fairy tells 5 spirits to load 1 ball on to 1 catapult and then 2 fairys let the catapult go shooting the paintball down the barrel at 300fps.
see now thats maths.

i made this up as i went

Mathmatically

Fairy = y Spirits = x turns of capsult = z

therefore

300 fps = (1y 5x) 25z

 

[Ali]

as uk killler said!
that is actual maths.

 

[jahlad]

F=MA

force = mass x acceleration

you know that the ball is moving at 300fps and the gun is fireing at 15 bps (lets keep the maths reasonably simple)...this will allow you to work out the acceleration.... convert this to meters per second square

weigh a ball to get the mass in N

then you can calculate the force on the ball when the air hits it
(this wont be exact as we are assuming that 15bps is the max output, but your teacher will be happy with the maths)

another reasonably easy one to work out is how far will the ball travel before it hits the ground.
assume a hight (measure it) you are holding the gun and assume that you are holding it horizontal....you know the speed the ball is moving horizontally and you can use affect of gravity to work out how long the ball will take to drop to the groud.......then use this time to work out how far the ball will travel in this time. if you want to get a little more involved you can do the same thing but assume the barrel is angled up at 5*.

dont try to work on the maths of what is actually going on in the gun...far too complicated for school stuff, unless you are doing A-level physics just stick to the ball rather than the gun and the teacher will love it,

 

[uk killer]

jahlad - are we talking atomic mass or gravitanal mass ? Also for disatance is not important to consider drag fractor ?

 

[matty healy]

F=MA

force = mass x acceleration

you know that the ball is moving at 300fps and the gun is fireing at 15 bps (lets keep the maths reasonably simple)...this will allow you to work out the acceleration.... convert this to meters per second square

weigh a ball to get the mass in N

then you can calculate the force on the ball when the air hits it
(this wont be exact as we are assuming that 15bps is the max output, but your teacher will be happy with the maths)

another reasonably easy one to work out is how far will the ball travel before it hits the ground.
assume a hight (measure it) you are holding the gun and assume that you are holding it horizontal....you know the speed the ball is moving horizontally and you can use affect of gravity to work out how long the ball will take to drop to the groud.......then use this time to work out how far the ball will travel in this time. if you want to get a little more involved you can do the same thing but assume the barrel is angled up at 5*.

dont try to work on the maths of what is actually going on in the gun...far too complicated for school stuff, unless you are doing A-level physics just stick to the ball rather than the gun and the teacher will love it,

cant we just simplyfy the maths a bit more (got a d in my gcse's )

 

[uk killer]

I think me bro's down at weekend he did a degree in maths I'll ask him about this for you.

 

[phoenix pete]

uk killer, drag will effect it but due to the awkward nature of it, we assume its negligable and dont include in calculations untill second year of uni.

and yea as said do the stuff about the ball after its left the marker, much simpler but allows you to talk about lots, (speed, gravity, preasure, momentum, elastic and plastic reactions, ect ect)

 

[Devrij]

cant we just simplyfy the maths a bit more (got a d in my gcse's )

That IS the simple version.
u=100m/s
a=0
m=.002kg (approx)
acc. due to gravity=g= 9.8m/s/s
horizontal distance traveled=s=ut + 1/2a[t^2] => s=100t
just pick a height and apply the same formula, putting the chosen height as s, and using g for the acceleration which gives you the time (t) for it to hit the ground, then stick that into the horizontal formula: that's how far a paintball will travel when fired parallel to the ground. The forces get a little more complex (not much) when you angle it because then you have to split it into vectors and you have an initial speed (u) for the vertical movement with -g as the acceleration. You'd have to do a bit of calculus if you wanted to take air resistance into account because the acceleration would change with velocity (a=-kv)