The development of these balloon setters goes back many years as a “passion” project for Raymond, my father, and together we developed this system. The Cowboy Mounted Shooting sport really developed here in the Phoenix area and it caught on fast among those who love to ride horses. As the sport grew, one of the biggest limitations for a good match was placing the balloons in the arena for each rider.
- Someone had to have/run an air compressor to inflate the balloons, this also required electricity out by the arena to do so.
- They had to seal the balloons and fasten them to the sticks, typically short sticks of PVC pipe.
- Then at the end of each rider, someone (or a number of folks) had to run out into the arena to remove/replace each popped balloon with a new one.
- By the end of the day… this got real slow.
- And lets not forget that there are rules for the size of the balloons to be fair to each rider. If it was to small then it wouldn’t pop properly, and was harder to hit. If it was to large then it was an easy target and popped easily. The size of each balloon needs to be very consistent in order to be fair to each rider.
As an Electronic / Electro-Mechanical engineer, I believed we could automate this process. As a result (of taking on the project) we developed some requirements and started inventing solutions.
Key requirements were:
No cords would be allowed in the arena.
The “belt” (or supply method of balloons) had to hold/supply enough balloons for a full stage, minimum.
Meet standard height for the balloons in the arena. (This developed over time)
Fill the balloons to the regulation size.
No cords meant battery power and radio control for each unit.
The balloon size and radio control required custom electronics.
Making a very long story short, maybe, is that the current units are belt fed, battery powered with a compressor and are controlled by a custom control board with a custom coded micro controller. The units were patented under patent #8,132,599 as an Automated Balloon Inflator System.