This photogate was handmade out of duct tape, two laser sensors, and a metal rack, and connects to the delay unit and the flash.
This is the black Plexiglas that the paintballs explode on. You can see that one paintball has already burst.
The viewing window for the camera is over here. There is a plane of Plexiglas in the way to protect the camera (and us!) from flying paintball debris.
These bricks may look trashy, but they keep the stand from rocking when the paintballs hit the Plexiglas, so that there is no unwanted blur in the pictures.
This is inside the shooting chamber, viewed from the hole where the paintball enters. Passing through the photogate,
the
paintball bursts on the black sheet of Plexiglas supported by the two clamp
stands and bricks. See how the photogate
is rigid and sturdy thanks to the metal stand? Previously, we were using cardboard to hold the two sensors together and
that continuously fell apart and bent, resulting in the delay unit malfunctioning because the sensors kept moving towards
the barrel of the gun. Also, the stands holding up the Plexiglas helped the functionality of the setup a lot, because
previously we had to just lean the Plexiglas against the back wall of the "house". This made it hard to take pictures from
the side, because a direct angle wasn't possible through the window, to clean the Plexiglas, because we couldn't easily
reach it from the opening of the house, and for us to have a reliable stand that wouldn't fall over or crack with the
exertion of the exploding paintballs.
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