Launching T-shirts!

Goodness... there is still a lot to be said about our Fourth of July. Looking through our photographs, I realize that we really did pack in a lot of fun for one afternoon. So, sometime before the sponge-bucket-water game, and after the sponge-bucket-water game, we were launching T-shirts from the T-shirt cannon prototype version II. (You can check out version I at Love and Rockets.) Besides being fun to hold the cannon, and punch the button, I think people enjoyed the whole spectacle, not to mention trying to catch free shirts!


This time Shayan gets to take aim. Now, let me see if I can remember what changes were made since we last played with this device. The tube is smaller, and they replaced the... the... thing... the valve! The new valve is bigger. (Thank you, Alex. You can go back to sleep now.)


Smaller tube + bigger valve = bigger crowd, more smiles, and greater distance for shirts to travel. They used to travel about 100' and now the T-shirts can be launched 200' away... a few hit the pool!


Systems checks, cameras ready, and Kyle has his hand over The Button. If you come to the Bird House, and you get to push The Button, let's just say it's life altering, even when it isn't hooked up to a cannon.


And we shout a warning to the rest of the party out in the yard, and then we countdown...


we remind everyone that it is loud...


Can't you just feel the anticipation?!


Yeah, it is that cool.


Across the yard, they dash for the incoming T-shirt. Grant has it in his target. Can you see the white tubular projectile coming down, above the hula-hoop? That's one of seven Time-Warner Connect A Million Minds T-shirts we collected at FIRST Championships in St Louis. It's all about promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Music, and Math... actually we include the "art and music," so it is STEAMM, instead of just STEM.

We are all about promoting STEAMM.

And fun. So much fun.


And smiles. We love promoting smiles.


Annie is at the helm, or what do they call the cannon master, the one taking aim? Anyway, Annie is boss.



Now Andrea is boss.


Geoff shouts, "Incoming!"


Something about the noise... a lot of pictures show the boss with their eyes shut. The shirt is wrapped in painter's tape to keep it wound up in the tube.


Yeah, it is that cool.


Erika, Lonnie, and Emma.

Have I mentioned how excited I am about FIRST 2102 Team Paradox in 2012?

Yes, very excited.


So. T-shirt cannon, on the Fourth of July. Very cool. Very fun.

And today, in the metal shop, ever greater improvements will be made on the prototype, so that the T-shirt cannon will be a robot! Now, how epic is that?