Puaka is a centrifugal projectile launcher for peening various metals.
Puaka is a projectile launcher system that uses one motor-driven wheel at a High rpm to launch 12mm steel ball bearings. In addition to this direct drive wheel, there is an additional non-powered wheel that applies friction to projectiles inside a PVC hopper for launching.
This system was tested by firing 10 of the aforementioned projectiles at a set distance of 1 meter. These projectiles are fed into the two wheels using a PVC hopper system. The ball rolls into a space between the direct drive wheel and the unpowered wheel and then is propelled at a high speed between the two wheels.
The RPM of the motor was approximated using high-speed slow-mo video and a marker on the wheel for tracking rotations in relation to FPS. The actual RPM of the wheel is likely MUCH higher!!! The motor used 15W of power during testing. This estimated RPM allowed for a potential KE to be calculated for comparison with actual chronograph readings.