The Challenge

To create a contraption that can snare a moving golf ball securely with an active trigger using the following materials:

• 2 sheets of 8.5” x 11” card paper
• Scotch or masking tape
• 1 large paper clip
• Scissors
• Utility knife / exacto knife
• Hot glue + glue gun
• One rubber band

My Solution

It’s a beauty, isn’t it?

How it works

This trap is triggered by a golf ball rolling towards the hole at a 30-45 degree angle that hits a paperclip stand which is holding up a door that is being held down by a rubber band. This contact pushes the paperclip back, leaving the door with nowhere to go but downwards due to the force of the rubber band. The door covers the box’s holes completely, securely trapping the ball in a perfect rectangular prism.

How did you build this, o mighty engineering design student?

Why tell when I can show?

Step 1.

Print out this template for a 2” x 3” rectangular prism on one sheet of card paper.

Step 2.

Print out this template for the trap’s door on a sheet of card paper.

Step 3.

Cut along the border of each template, and fold on the lines.

Step 4.

Cut out grayed out areas of the template with either scissors, a utility knife, or an exacto knife.

Step 5.

Assemble the boxes with tape and solidify edges and vertices with hot glue.

Step 6.

Cut two .75” wide, 5” long strips of paper from the remaining card paper.

Step 7.

Wrap each strip in a tube around a section the rubber band, and seal the tube with tape, making sure it is wide enough to allow it to move freely up and down the rubber band.

Step 8.

Tape a section of the rubber band to the center of the top edge of the trap’s door.

Step 9.

Insert the door into the trap’s top hole. (reference image above)

Step 10.

Wrap the rubber band around the sides and bottom of the box.

Step 11.

Glue the tubes parallel to each other on the left and right sides of the trap.

Step 12.

Bend a paper clip into a stand-like shape with two 90deg angle bends in the same direction

Step 13.

Pull up door and balance it on your paperclip stand.

Step 14.

Bask in this amazing feat of engineering and slam a golf ball in the hole!

Reflection

After about 2 weeks of smashing my head into my desk trying to figure out how to create a middle-out ball trap solution, I decided to try to emulate how a mammal’s jaw works in my project. Then that idea failed and this design came out of that sprint. I believe that my design performed well against the criteria given, as it take little material to build, is relatively simple to construct, and consistently traps the ball with no chance of escape. The three most important things that I’ve learned are iteration, efficiency, and taking inspiration from nature. I wish I had spent more time optimizing my design. I did my best work on creating a product that is both easy to build and performs well. The most enjoyable part of the project was testing my product and finally getting it work, and the least enjoyable was the ideation process where I went through a lot of bad designs. This project could be improved if students were given a theme to inspire their project upon so idea generation would be easier. I’d like to thank my agent, The Academy, and Shia LaBeouf, because without him, my memes would be dreams.