Quite possibly the single greatest thing I have ever had the privilege of calling a school project: the spring-loaded rubber chicken mortar from Sheridan’s production of Something Rotten!
November 2024: Herbie Barnes, our director, relays to props that he wants a “Giant golden egg that shoots out rubber chickens” for Something Rotten. I pounced on the project. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a vision, and ambition.
I started small, with a little cardboard tube and a couple small elastics. However, after scaling up, I kind of lost the plot. spent a week experimenting with pulleys and springs, barking up entirely the wrong tree, before a classmate suggested bungee cords. Why I didn’t start there, I don’t know.
It was a race against the clock, I had to build a backup design that just used a paddle on a handle to burble chickens up, but I eventually got the cannon working. With some help from My professor, Mark Carreiro, and some of my classmates, I was able to get the chicken cannon working, working reliably, and working on a foot pedal.
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