I'm building a robot, and I'm looking for advice on what I should use to accomplish this.

I need to be able to move a ball across a room (probably around 50 feet). A well placed, but fairly weak "punch" by can achieve the force and distance I'm looking for, but I'm having trouble locating something that would be able to replicate that kind of action. Probably some sort of short draw pneumatic cylinder or some type of motor system that can build up force and let it go in an instant. Can anyone recommend me something that they think might help, or point me in the right direction?

Pneumatic systems are pretty heavy for a small robot - you've gotta carry the cylinder, solenoid valve and gas.

How about an elastic system? Use a low geared motor to pull a plunger back, and elastic pulling the other way to produce the burst of energy. You could use a large snail cam to pull it back, with some sort of release mechanism.

A pump, reservoir, and ram wouldn't be very heavy at all. A few pounds at the most. Besides, he hasn't said anything about the weight or size capacity of the thing yet.

The weight of the pneumatics won't be a problem, I have a very light system.

In the end, I'd rather go with a pneumatic system simply because I think it will give more consistent results, but I still don't have an idea of what can deliver enough force in a short amount of time.

what kind of ball? maybe just compressed air

RDP

It's not a solid ball, so simply blasting it with compressed air wouldn't get it any distance. It kind of looks like a soccer ball except the octagons have holes in them.

Wiffle Ball? Anyway, if its light weight air will probably do a good job.

RDP