My Freshman year of high school, I built a potato cannon. It wasn’t great. The biggest issues were: the lack of a solenoid valve, and the tiny air chamber. I affectionately referred to it as “The doohicky.”
For my Sophomore year, I had to rebuild it for a friend’s final project. I gave it a better air chamber using PVC and a Schrader valve from a bike.
Finally, for my Junior year of high school, I was lucky enough to find a GIANT piece of PVC pipe at the dump that I turned into a bigger air chamber. Now, when I shoot it the recoil feels pretty impressive.
I expect for my senior year, I will be building something capable of accelerating a projectile to escape velocity ;)
