Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

What is the difference?

My team is using a short shooter that can shoot 25 feet and hit the same spot + or - 4 inches. All I see this year is tall shooters.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

What about mid?

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

easier to block the short guy ;). why do you think you dont see any...... shorter ethnicities playing basketball

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

The reasoning behind tall shooters is that the ball is already starting at a higher altitude, so it can go further with less power.


With that being said, we have a mid level shooter.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

With a taller shooter aren't you more likely to tip over though

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Not necessarily. It's entirely possible to design short shooters that shoot at an angle that's impossible to block. (E.g. the ball is over 60" above the ground by the time it leaves the robot's frame perimeter).

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

One reason why our team chose to go with a tall shooter was because we were afraid that teams would try to block our shots. If our shooter is at almost the maximum height limit though, we don't ever have to worry about that since robots trying to block our shots can't be higher than 60". That being said, making a taller shooter adds more weight. A pick and choose thing.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

If you shoot at too much of an angle, lets go to the extreme and say 89 degrees. itll take "forever" to get there, and the shot is very unlikely to get there depending on the conditions of the building you are shooting in.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

What's considered a tall shooter? Our shooter is somewhere around 45-50 inches, im not really sure which side to vote on........
IMO, ~45-50 in. is optimal.

-Duke

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Not true. This was our thinking this season but if you design your robot right you can get a low shooter exiting your robot area to clear a tall robot. Our robot has the balls exiting around 30inches from the floor and easily clear a tall robot.


I love short robots. They are very maneuverable and have a smaller chance of tipping. Its the little things that can really give a robot an edge against other competition.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We designed a tall shooter to hopefully prevent our camera from being blocked. No matter what the the angle of your shooter is, if your camera is low enough to be blocked it's going to be very hard to get an accurate shot. We did try to keep as much of our weight as low as possible.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

This is why we designed a tall shooter too; we didn't want our camera to be blocked.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

What about a short shooter with an elevated camera?

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

This would work too. I guess it just depends on the team and what their design calls for. Our kids decide they like the tall shooter the best.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Short shooters have a lower CoG and are easier to balance on the bridge. We have a short shooter, and our decision had nothing to do with being blocked or being tipped.

In fact, if we are shooting from the key, we figure no team will be silly enough to get close to block our shots without us drawing the foul. Also, if you shoot from the back of the robot, the shot can pretty much clear a 5 foot obstruction unless the shooter is on the ground floor of your robot.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We have a short shooter (24" at the very top, yeah we have a small robot), and our rationale was:

• Less weight-you don't need to build a huge superstructre on the shooter
• Lower Center of Gravity-you can cross the barrier and the bridge without tipping over.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Another short shooter here. Our robot is under 3 feet to make sure we won't flip in the event of a bridge mishap. It made mounting electronics interesting but also cut out a good chunk of aluminum weight. We're at 119 still so we definitely took advantage of it.

Unless you're shooting at a low angle I don't see having a short shooter being a huge factor in competition. Those shooting from the key will ensure anyone close enough to block them takes penalties and those shooting from the fender will need to have no one in front of them to score anyway.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Mid shooter at 48". It allows our camera to be around 42" up, and we never tipped in practice on bumpr or bridge (thanks to a lot of clever placements from yours truly, giant wheels, and a wheelie bar.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

~55in because we have a feeding shot (in addition to a key shot) that we don't want to have blocked in the opposing zone. Still she's a little tipp-y in wide snake (another unicorn drive this year). We'll fix that.

Our shooter is ~ 24" and the robot is 39" tall I think. Our plan was that we would have a lower cg for the bump and bridge plus reducing weight. We also figured there wouldn't be many opposing robots blocking.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

That's not true based on our design. Our robot launches the ball from aprozimately 36 inches above the ground with an angle of 65 degrees. And even if a 60 inch robot is parked right up against our front bumper we can still shoot over them without a problem.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

our team is very very fast to stop blockers

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We're a mid shooter, just a little under 50", and we may end up shortening it. We don't have too many tipping problems, and I doubt anyone can block us from shooting.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Just like 25 in 2006. Everyone thought they shot low but the ball left their frame perimeter very high in actuality.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We originally planned as having our shooter at 58 inches high. Yikes we would have tipped easily. We then wanted to reduce as much weight and still have the same ability to shoot over tall defenders from blocking our shots.

So we did the math and psychics and calculated that, using our shooter would still be able to go over a 60 inch defender if we lowered the height to 48 inches. Thats about 10 inches shorter lowering our center of gravity.

So I guess we are a median shooter at 48 inches.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We have a short shooter but because when the ball leaves our perimeter it is above 60 inches it makes no difference. We figured the lower we could put our shooter, the better. This way we keep our center of gravity lower and struggle less with the bump and bridge and overall have more stable driving.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

We built a tall shooter. In our week 0 our autonomous shot over the top of a short shooter, who then shot after us. It worked out quite well, there is definitely a place for both in the game.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Shoot from the back of the key, the opposing alliance wouldn't risk entering the front of the key to block shorter bots. One possible problem with short bots though, the shot won't be blocked because of the arc, but the linear line of sight of the camera might be. :eek:

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

we actually put our shooter on a elevator lift so we can choose our heights. it worked out a lot better than i thought. and also put our camera low because we didn't see the point for tracking since we don't have turret.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Our shooter is about 40" up, because we already have the x position fixed and the length of the collector (the hypotenuse) fixed.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

Teams could look at the rules from earlier in the season, then doing some trig, come up with a solid minimum height for your robot based on its configuration. 10 inches for 2 teams' bumpers, plus x distance in your robot, 60 inches, and the angle your bot makes its shots. Most teams who did that will be hitting in a height between 3.5-4 feet, depending on how their shooter works with their chassis. (Our wide base and 63 angle had us put the shooter exit where it is now)

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

What is this "shooter" of which you poll? There are other designs that teams are building...

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

um im not sure if you noticed but this is a thread about tall and short shooters. (not dumpers or whatever). the poll is about if you made a shooter did you go tall or short.

Re: Tall Shooters vs Small Shooters
 

I have yet to see a shooter shorter than ours... 12"!! It can still shoot over a 60" robot!! While shooting is not going to be our first priority, it was still cool to build it into such a small bot.