Zeus' Slingshot

This sketch model is a "works-like" model type of the actual Zeus' Slingshot that is going to be used by the players of Zeus vs. Poseidon room, to defeat Poseidon's army - further details in the storyboard. That said, it's important to point out that our group did not spend a lot of time trying to make the sling look like the actual one - which will be conceived in the appropriate materials and shape to match the room theme -, but instead, we focused more in the functionalities of the element and its user-product interaction features. That said, let's now move to the element functionalities description.

The sling itself is essentially made of two posts that sustain an elastic band attached to them. As expected, the user should place the lightning ball in the middle of the band and then pull them back as he/she aims for the target. Once the user has the target in his sight, simply release the ball and the stretched band will do the work for you.

Now, about aiming, previous sketch modeling activities taught us that using the elastic "differential stretching" for aiming up and down is ok if you have vertical posts - which is our case -, however, aiming sideways is not. Therefore, the solution that we came up with was to make a platform linked by a shaft to the balcony base, so that the sling could rotate within a vertical axis. That way whenever the user wants to aim to the left/right, all he has to do is to move the ball right/leftwards, and the platform will turn with it simultaneously.

Obs.: you might have noticed that the gif shows me grabbing the posts to rotate the sling instead of a "self-rotating" movement as described above. That's because blue foam is not a very good material when it comes to friction, so in a further more refined model we hope to reduce this friction between the base and the sling platform by working with different materials and also adding a bearing or a brass bush to the shaft. That way, everything should work as planned.