Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I think a ball shooter is more reliable, due to the fact that it says in the rules: "Any extension above 60 in. may not exceed a 6 in. diameter vertical cylinder."
It would then be easier to shoot from alliance's zones, but there's also the fact that you need to catch the ball, or at least pick it off the ground.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

...

Moved to new thread, under strategy.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

The preceding post was an extremely astute analysis of this years game considerations, and the advice for the build approach is spot on, IMO. It was moved to here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=124067

-Dick Ledford

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

The infinitely variable power shooter seems like it would be a useful concept to implement in this years game.

-Dick Ledford

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I think my post was a bit off topic for this thread. I'll move it over to a new thread.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Teams are failing to realize that this ball is incredibly light. And herding this large clumsy object is not as easy it sounds. It flies off in odd directions. It does not behave like a basketball in rebound rumble. It doesn't like to be herded with bumpers

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I came up with this pickup/shooter with the ability to pass. You can also add a hopper to the top to allow robots or human players to pass the ball directly into the shooter. It is quite compact and simple and is linear allowing the robot to drive up to a ball, bull-doze it and shoot it. Also, a simple CMUCam would allow you to track the balls and automatically align the robot so that the pickup would be assisted! I think that this is what we have been waiting for.

Here is the link to it in my CDN.

Also, I have the encrypted manuals in the CDN too. Will that cause any copyright problems?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Thinking more about catching the ball led me to consider the size of the robot. We are allowed to make the extensions very big this year - 20 inches outside the perimeter on all sides simultaneously.

It may make sense to have a big funnel made of two folding arms that pivot on the vertical axis about two adjacent robot corners. These would open to about 80 degrees, for a total width of about 56", or more than twice the ball diameter. The funnel sides could be designed to "trip" and hinge closed towards each other when a sensor plate at the perimeter line is pressed by the ball moving toward the robot.

This could be rather tall as well, giving a very large target area for the robot to make it easy to receive a pass.

Is this nuts?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

Yeah, it's nuts. I was thinking the same thing.

We must have the same brain?

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

I like a soccer analogy better.

The best pass would be one that lands in front of me in my zone so I can easily shove it to the next zone. That should count as an assist.

I think the highest scoring would be each of us playing one zone and moving the ball very quickly between us.

Re: What should a standard "Pass" be?
 

But the human player station only covers the exchange between two zones.