Ping Pong Launcher Essay

Matthew Coggins

Humanities

12/7/17

Over the course of one month, we have been working on creating a functioning ping pong

ball launcher that has the ability to hit a target placed anywhere on a three foot range.

Throughout this project, many things went well, and some things went not as smoothly. There

are a few things that I learned while working on this project with my group. It is very important

to be precise in everything to avoid having to redo diagrams and papers. In addition, it is

important to be able to work together as a team to do work efficiently and quick. The last

important thing I took away from this project was that double checking and taking precaution in

everything helps to save time and lower risk of error.

One important thing I learned during the ping pong launcher project was when working

on projects or writing essays, it is important to be precise in everything you do. Being precise on

our materials list is something that we could have done to save time. When we were creating our

materials list, we did not specify length on a couple things including our spring, and as a result

didn’t get the right spring and had to wait another day for a spring before we could start

assembling our launcher. This caused us to lose building time, and as a result, we rushed a

couple steps in the process of building a launcher. Also, when drawing diagrams, make sure to

label and be specific the first time around. In our group, we were forced to redo our launchers

diagram since the lengths and sizes were not specific enough, and the drawing itself wasn’t

properly formatted the first time around, which caused us to create a second drawing. During the
process of building, it is also important to keep close track of time in order for you to finish

building on time. In our group, we forgot about putting in time for hot glue to set and as result,

broke our spring off twice trying to launch since the hot glue wasn’t dry, and wasted about 30

minutes re-gluing the spring on the next day.

Another thing we learned was that in a group project, learning to work as a team is

crucial. In order to work as a team, compromisation between group members is a necessity.

During the ping pong launcher project,while doing the design matrix, we couldn’t come up with

options for the ping pong launcher since we kept disagreeing on what to put for each one. This

wasted about one whole day, and as a result, we ended up behind other groups. In the end, we

voted and compromised on which ideas would be potential choices for our launcher. Along with

compromisation, communication is equally important in a group in order to get work done

quickly and efficiently without confusion. In our group, there was bad communication between a

couple group members when cutting wood and PVC pipe, and as a result, the slots in the pvc

pipe, and the wood board sizes were both screwed up the first time through. Luckily, they were

both cut too big, and could be easily fixed. When making our launcher, it would have also been

helpful if the whole team could use the launcher. In our group however, we only had one person

that could launch the ping pong launcher, and as a result data got collected slowly since only one

person could launch.

The last thing that I learned was that in most projects, individual or collaborative, taking

extra precaution in everything will help save time and make life easier. One way to do this is to

double check everything. In our project, we did not double check the spring when hot gluing, and

as a result, we had to re-glue the spring 2 times since we didn’t check the hot glue beforehand

Another way to help take precaution is to proof-read everything. In our matrix and docs, we had
a lot of typos and grammatical errors since we didn’t double check and proofread. One thing that

our group forgot to do, that would have been very helpful, was to make sure tools work work

beforehand. In our group, I went out to drill a hole into a wood block, and I didn’t check the drill

first, so it was on reverse, and since it was in reverse, it didn’t drill a hole in the wood, just made

a dent and caused the block to shoot off the table and break into a couple pieces. We had to get a

whole new base block after that.