Capstone team reimagines the T-shirt cannon for Wildcats sports
Interdisciplinary Capstone Team 25502's Cat Cannon is ‘a celebration of academics and athletics.’
University of Arizona Interdisciplinary Capstone Team 25502 is taking sports entertainment to another level, quite literally. The team of undergraduate engineering students has developed the "Cat Cannon," a technologically advanced T-shirt cannon for sporting events that easily outshines the competition.
The team studied existing T-shirt cannon designs, then identified ways to improve performance and audience appeal. Their goal was to develop a model that reaches people in the farthest seats. The Cat Cannon features a multi-barreled, multi-directional design that launches multiple balls in rapid succession to all sections of the crowd. Audience members can trade in their catch at a designated spot for a variety of sponsored swag, like shirts, mugs, or free food, for example.
“We’re learning to collaborate across disciplines and communicate with other departments while building this project from the ground up,” said Skyler Stokes, a mechanical engineering major. “The documentation, presentations and processes we’re using mirror what we’ll encounter in the real workforce."
Team 25502 is sponsored by Seton Claggett’s BATYL Industries startup company. The College of Engineering graduate holds a bachelor's and master's in hydrology. To guarantee crowd safety, the team conducted preliminary tests at McKale with U of A’s Risk Management and McKale Operations team.
The team has been refining the design since spring 2024 and will present a prototype at the Craig M. Berge Winter Design Day on Dec. 5.