How To Make a vision-guided fireball-throwing catapult

Every hacker wants a budget to do bigger, cooler hacks. Well, we got our budget, all $1000 of it, and decided to turn a borrowed industrial robot into a catapult, a hack we'd been hoping to do for a long, long time. We'd been joking about throwing heavy objects with one of these robots ever since we saw the payload specs and an anvil in the shop.
We wanted to make a catapult that could destroy a car with bowling balls from at least 80 feet away, throw fireballs, and be controlled through a computer vision system so it could be aimed from a laptop. Result? Success.
More of the how to in the link. Also here is 2 videos.



An industrial robot throws bowling balls 120 feet into the side of an RV. The guys from Mana Energy Potions proceed to light a bowling ball on fire and throw that too.



The RoboPult flings pig entrails, carrots, and eggs at Eli. Don't watch this one if you have a weak stomach. Link, Videos: Youtube 1 and 2