Ideal Ball weight to get the maximum range from a ball launcher?

[cosmo88]

Hello guys, i am building a ball launcher to proper a line of baits into the sea, the line has 25 baits, each bait weights 30 grams (about 1oz)

ideal shooting degree seems to be 45 to get maximum range, What I would like to figure out is the ideal weight of the ball to achieve the greatest distance for a shot.

Here is an illustration of what I want to do:

Many thanks for helping me with this.

 

[gneill]

If this is an attempt to design such a device, perhaps start with a simplified model to get a feel for the problem?

You don't mention the weight (better: mass) per unit length of the rope to which the baits are attached. Nor do you define the spacing of the baits on that rope.

Why not simplify the initial attempt by assuming a uniform rope of constant linear mass per unit length that effectively includes the masses of the baits along its length?

I think that this simplified version of the problem will not be an easy task to analyze, even ignoring air resistance on the line and ball.

 

[cosmo88]

Hi Gneill,

Thank you for your reply, I actually already made a simplified model, I am currently able to shoot a soccer ball (1lbs) about 100 yards, with no line or baits attached to it, that distance should be improved in the future real thing with a better band and design.

The Weight of a line (very thin rope) of 100 yards is about 1lbs too, the spacing between baits is 10 ft.

I thought about air resistance too, but as I am a complete newbie when it comes to physics I have no idea how to do the calculations.

Thanks again for helping.

 

[cjl]

A lot of this depends on the details of the launcher itself. If the launcher always launches at a fixed velocity, ideal ball weight is as heavy as possible to minimize the impact of air resistance. However, all real launchers will have some sort of launch velocity dependence on the mass of the projectile, and you need to know this before you can have an answer.