DawgZooka is remotely-operated-vehicle (ROV) air-cannon and was developed by Electronic Systems Technologies students in the College of Applied Sciences and Arts.  DawgZooka  was a class project in fall 2004 for professor Martin Hebel's EST-343 course on microcontroller programming and embedded control.

The chassis is from a decommissioned bomb-disposal robot, or ROV, on loan from the SIU police department.  The EST students improved the maximum speed and developed the remotely-controlled drive system to allow operation with a standard RC controller, along with designing the air-cannon platform.

The air-cannon includes a liquid-CO2 filled flask, regulator,  accumulator, launch barrel and firing valve.  The regulator controls the pressure from the CO2 flask to charge the accumulator with 50 to 280psi.  The firing valve is activated remotely to dump the accumulator to the barrel to launch the contents.  DawgZooka has an on-board controller which controls the drive, barrel elevation, firing valve and front lights based on remote-operator action.

DawgZooka has 3" diameter barrel allowing the launching of T-shirts, balls, confetti, submarine sandwiches, and most anything else that can be put in it!   So come to a SIU men's home basketball game at the arena and catch a t-shirt launched into the upper-stands!

Daily Egyptian Article - 1/24/2008

Men's Basketball Schedule

AVI of test launch - 5Meg, must download first.

We thank the following for their support and sponsorship:

• Saluki Central for basketball appearance sponsorship and new shirt design and donations!

• SIU University Police Department for the chassis.

• Jimmy John's Subs for financial contributions (and subs to test launch!).

And of course a big thanks to the students involved in developing DawgZooka,
and their on-going commitment as DawgZooka handlers at the games!

Demonstrating for Robotics Camp students

At the WFMB Shootout in Springfield

At the Springfield State Fair

l At the DuQuoin State Fair