What are the advantages to various launchers
 

My team has been trying to decide on how we are going to propel the ball, and we had 2 main ideas; the obvious one is a catapult that uses springs or surgical tubing to snap an arm quickly making the ball go flying. But we are also thinking of a kicker like in breakaway. What are some advantages of both and are there other ways of moving the ball?

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

Prototype each idea, that gives a good representation of pluses and minuses of each

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

A good question to ask is what goal are you aiming for? This has been brought up wth my team aswell. I feel like a kicker kind of launcher would be better for the lower goal. But if you are aiming for the high goal, a kicker might not be able to get the job done...but we have not prototyped any of these yet, just sharing my thoughts.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

This is assuming the kicker is on the ground, and not at an angle of course. I believe they could do some serious work, just need to use them a little differently than they were in the previous game.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

It all depends on what you want to do. I could see a kick done right be able to score in the high goal. What you may want to consider when testing is the travel path of the ball. Do you want to have a longer shot with not such a high arc or do you want a big arc with not much distance? The kicker could get you a further distance with good floor passing ability. But you couldn't make a reasonable pass over the truss. With the catapult toy can get the right arc and be able to launch wirh a limited distance (depends on the setup and what you want out of it) but it would have poor floor passing do to the arc you will get. Overall you should test both shooting mechanisms and see which best fits your priorities.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

It all depends on what you want to do. Different levels of accuracy are required for throwing a ball over the truss than throwing it in the ten point goal.

Consider what your strategy is before you consider what mechanisms and trade offs different launchers have.

Above any other previous year, it is a completely legitimate strategy this year to ignore firing the ball in the air altogether.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

Yes completely right! You could easily make a bot just to pass. If a team is able to roll a ball at a robot like this and it just propels it right out they could easily be a second pick in my opinion. They could stand right in front of the low goal and have another team roll it to them and then just propel it into the low goal. Easy enough to get one more assist before that.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

In fact, I would bet that such a "finisher" robot will be highly desirable. In this game, for a team that isn't "AAA," being successful is as easy as being able to gain and give control of the ball in a controlled manner. If I happened to be in a picking position, that would be the number one thing I was looking for: robots that can easily pass and be passed to.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

This is going to be an issue with catapult robots. Theu won't be able to pass on the floor. In my teams opinion passing on the floor is huge. Faster assits and faster scoring. Typically I think we will see a pattern that the more cycles an alliance get the more points they will output. Alliances that go for three assits potentially will struggle do to the nature that they won't be able to fluidly connect the three assits and not be able to score as rapidly. That is where a powered down kicker could be a game changer because it is able to make floor passes giving more flow instead of having to go all over the place trying to get a bouncing ball.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

One thing to keep in mind is that 2014 robots are smaller than 2008 robots. This makes the catapult arm shorter than many 2008 designs. Same with kickers. The size constraint means that the amount of stored energy to shoot the ball may be much higher than in 2008. This is a safety issue. This amount of energy can crush body parts. Design and test safely!! There were injuries back in 2008. Our initial prototyping has shown that good upper goal shots are possible. However, our designs do not fit on the robot. The team needs to shrink them down to some thing that can be incorporated in the robot. I suspect this will be a very hard task.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

Why do you think a robot capable of shooting/launching/catapulting won't be able to pass on the ground?

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

My team is considering a wheel shooter (similar to 2012), but I'm personally not confident that you can generate enough force off the wheels to shoot the ball far enough with this year's game.

Has anyone done any math or prototype testing yet in regards to the validity of this particular design?

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

I'll just leave this 2008 video here in case anyone wants it.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

Chances are that using a design similar to 2012 won't work. With a 24in ball you wouldn't be able to get it far with one point of contact.

Re: What are the advantages to various launchers
 

Is there any mathematics or testing behind that statement, or is that purely logic/speculation?