[Dturner8962]

Hello everyone,

My name is Darius Turner from Worthington Kilbourne High School and I am doing an engineering project for my school. My team's job is to innovate a product and our team decided to make a better paintball hopper that decreases reload time and control spillage while reloading. One of our many tasks is administering a survey to ask what the people would to see in our product and who else better to ask than you guys! There is no virus and the form is made through Google Forms and all data is collected through the website. It will be greatly appreciated if you guys can help our team out! Thank you for your time.



SURVEY: http://goo.gl/forms/W20GIy0Xpf

 

[martix_agent]

Honestly? The virtue spire took care of this. Those spring leaded speed feed fingers are amazing. I can't loose paint even if I try to.

 

[Trbo323]

ya at this point in the industry if you are dropping paint it is because its your own fault not the equipment

 

[Dturner8962]

Our job is to make a inexpensive standard issue hopper that reduces reload time and spillage. We aim to accommodate beginners who are new to paintball and those just looking to have a good time.

 

[Trbo323]

If you can design it with a $40 price in mind you might have a winner

right now there is this gap in forcefeeders and it doesnt really have anything to do with spilling paint. you can get a gravity hopper at $5, a really crappy loader between about $30-$70 and then after $70 you start getting into the good loaders, nobody makes a good forcefeeder at around the $40 price point right now which is what a new player could really use

 

[martix_agent]

Companies could make a mid-priced hopper, but they wouldn't sell as many high end ones because of it. What would you do to "dumb down" a mid level hopper?

 

[Dturner8962]

If you can design it with a $40 price in mind you might have a winner

right now there is this gap in forcefeeders and it doesnt really have anything to do with spilling paint. you can get a gravity hopper at $5, a really crappy loader between about $30-$70 and then after $70 you start getting into the good loaders, nobody makes a good forcefeeder at around the $40 price point right now which is what a new player could really use

we will keep this in mind while making this product thank you for your input

 

[Trbo323]

Companies could make a mid-priced hopper, but they wouldn't sell as many high end ones because of it. What would you do to "dumb down" a mid level hopper?

slower motor, less efficient, easier shell to construct

I was just poking around on ANS, I had forgotten about the revolution. That is a great beginning forcefeeder, $50ish and it gets the job done, by no means is it trying to reach the high end loaders but it still has enough features to keep a marker shooting and have very few issues

The old eggs, the shells were crap, the lid was weird but they did a great job of loading. Heck, you could take the old ricochet hoppers, re-work them so they are more of a forcefeed (pinokio pretty much did just that) and could easily sell it at around $40, you wouldnt see them on any pro teams but you would probably make a good deal of money from new players

Dturner8962- see the thing is you guys have picked a "problem" that is not really a problem in the sport, at least one which the equipment is not at fault

Here is an idea for you guys, instead of trying to solve a problem that really only hits a small portion of the players, design a product that would change things up a bit

in example-Heads Up Displays (HUDs) have been making their way into ski goggles in the last handful of years, some of them record video, some track your altitude,speed and location of friends but they are all pretty unique and definatly new to snow sports. I have been wondering what you could do with these for paintball, afterall there is a lot more room in a paintball mask than ski goggles, you could do stuff like track how many players are left in a game, time of the game, location of team mates, heck you could integrate a communication system into it

it would be crazy expensive but AWESOME

just an idea for you

 

[martix_agent]

The virtue vmax and the Jt evolution look pretty solid, and they're mid-level priced; there's always the halo too

 

[Trbo323]

virtue vmax? you mean the valken v-max? last I heard it was complete crap, jammed or chopped all the time, something like that. I could be remembering wrong but I think miller had one for like a month, got rid of it in a hurry

the JT revolution (JT calls it the revolution classic) is still the same hopper it was in the 90s, the evlution (yes thats how they spell it) is basically the evo5 I had it wrong above but that is the hopper I was talking about, $53 and a pretty solid hopper but thats basically it for a good forcefeeder on a budget

why cant JT come up with a new name already!? its getting confusing

the too is still one of my favorites but the price is still an issue for some players, $74 is a lot to spend on one piece when just getting into the sport

 

[huckduck]

there's vmax2 now remember? not that i know anyone who's touched one IRL

 

[martix_agent]

The evo 5 internals look nearly identical to my Viewloater Eye Force that I used to own. That was a rock solid hopper when it came to feeding paint.

You say that new things are too expensive, but does any person buy a brand new car for their first vehicle? Cars are expensive too, but a used car is perfectly fine if you can't afford a new one.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Jesus ****ing Christ it's a HIGH SCHOOL class project. Instead of shooting him down why not just fill out the survey and be constructive? If everybody just said that all the problems were solved we'd all be shooting PGPs because it has a handle and solved all of our recocking issues. That's fine with me but I imagine there aren't many players today willing to stick with that. Besides everyone knows that a Phantom feed gate is the best reloading system.

 

[martix_agent]

I filled out the survey. and provided constructive criticism in it.

It appears as if his group wishes to design a large mouth speed feed. It's not a bad idea for a design. A lot of hoppers have feed openings that are barely bigger than a pod. that means that feeding paint into them can be a pain.

 

[Trbo323]

The evo 5 internals look nearly identical to my Viewloater Eye Force that I used to own. That was a rock solid hopper when it came to feeding paint.

You say that new things are too expensive, but does any person buy a brand new car for their first vehicle? Cars are expensive too, but a used car is perfectly fine if you can't afford a new one.

thats because they are very nearly identical. the evo5 is basically just a updated eyeforce

Im not saying people should not buy used but with hoppers, at least IMO because so much of them is plastic its much easier to get one with a lot of wear and tear on it. that and a new player getting into the sport often does not want to deal with a BST section to try and find the gear they want at the price they want in the condition they want. Getting into the sport you just dont know what to look for in a hopper first off, scratches on the outside to you and me may mean nothing but to a new player thats all they can go off of.

Jesus ****ing Christ it's a HIGH SCHOOL class project. Instead of shooting him down why not just fill out the survey and be constructive? If everybody just said that all the problems were solved we'd all be shooting PGPs because it has a handle and solved all of our recocking issues. That's fine with me but I imagine there aren't many players today willing to stick with that. Besides everyone knows that a Phantom feed gate is the best reloading system.

part of high school is learning to deal with constructive criticism (and honestly a part that gets taught less and less) if they want to go on with this hopper by all means, its their project but my understanding is they are trying to solve a problem in paintball, go find me the last post where someone said they were having a problem not spilling paint when they reloaded their hopper.

no really, go ahead, I'll wait

 

[martix_agent]

Go find me the last post where someone said they were having a problem not spilling paint when they reloaded their hopper.

no really, go ahead, I'll wait

I can't find you a post, but I witness it all the time in first time and rental players. It's a problem that does exist. Is it a problem with gear, or is it a problem with the people using the gear? I'd wager that's it's the latter, but it doesn't hurt to try to design a solution as a high school project.

 

[huckduck]

if the mouth is too open, the pod gonna end up inside your hopper lol

 

[Trbo323]

I agree, so to me it doesnt really matter what you design unless it has a 5 gallon bucket for a mouth, the only other way would be taking control of the loading process away from the user or doing something like a clip feed but all of those cause more problems but would solve that 1 issue

I have always wondered if the pinokio team basically started with the intention of just attaching a pod to the front of their hopper, that would be one way to handle it but the issue would turn into how to attach and detach that pod on the front of the hopper without spilling the contents of either in the process

so some crazy lid on the pod and some kind of a gate on the hopper nose but then you have to buy those pods for that hopper, no flexibility and probably a higher cost than anything else out there so you end up causing more problems than you solve, if you dont care about the cost and design aspects then sure this can be done but if they are looking for a real world marketable system, personally I think there are other things within paintball to look at.

If you could design a barrel that used autococker threads but was much easier to get on and off a marker than the 6-7 full turns a cocker threaded barrel currently needs you could be marketing that overnight