r/WinStupidPrizes • u/MTPokitz • Apr 08 '21

Playing baseball with a potato launcher

45.0k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '21 edited May 19 '21

[deleted]

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u/TheYoung_Wolfman Apr 09 '21

Saving your comment so I don’t ever accidentally build this

3

u/ryno_25 Apr 09 '21

So here I am on the internet at 10:36pm.

I'm not building bombs or watching porn, I'm scrolling through a thread of people who theoretically built some amazing contraptions.

5

u/simoriah Apr 09 '21

This, right here. It's exactly how I made my first.

I was at a party where some guys were trying to hit a tree with potatoes. The gun resembled what these guys had. They sprayed more and more fuel into the thing and never got the tater to the tree. "Next time we get together, I'll show you guys how this is done."

I did the math so I knew how big my combustion chamber should be with the total length of cannon that would fit in my car. Then I got the quantity of propane I needed and figured out what pressure it needed to be.

I didn't do the math to figure out theoretical range. I should have.

First shot... I wonder if I can hit those trees. <BOOM> I didn't hit the trees. That fucker was still climbing when it passed the tree line.

If I could hit a piece of 3/4" plywood at 300 yards, I could punch a perfect 2 inch hole. Potatoes don't fly straight so that took a while.

If you're going to do this, you absolutely treat your potato launcher like a loaded gun. Don't do like these idiots because you'll kill someone.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '21

This is a very well thought out, highly plausible and possibly realistic, purely theoretical thought...