Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Right. But still, that's more than half the number of balls - by one robot.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

I was interpreting this to mean that it would be rotating at a fixed speed (5 fuel/s), and packing it tighter ensures there will be fuel in each slot of the rotating mechanism, essentially making 5/s the max. I could be wrong, but I'm going to assume that's the case until I can see a source with numbers for it going faster than 5/s. I'd LIKE to be proven wrong here, but for now I think it's best to assume the worst case.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

From 3.11.4 in the manual:

From this I'd say it's spinning faster but if there aren't many balls, it will average 5/s.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

If you look at the picture of the boiler innards, it looks like a spinning disc with holes for fuel. If you fill the boiler such that a ball always drops into every available hole as the disc spins, then you get 5 fuel/sec. If you're filling the boiler such that balls don't drop into every hole, e.g. some get skipped over, then your effective rate drops.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Has this been Q&A'd? I've also been reading the nanual as "5 or higher" (probably due to other HQ and non-HQ sources talking about numbers like 8+). But it's true the manual as written could well mean "5 or less", and that also makes mechanical sense. This could be huge for some teams. Regardless, if that number is controlled, e.g. the disc always spins at 5 fuel holes per second, teams deserve to know. Or if it spins at 10 and more balls means less "wandering" but fewer means missed holes (so they think it'll average 5), we ought to know that too. This is the problem with having a black boxed field element.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Technically if we go with the strict definition of "average" of 5, that would mean the boiler can definitely process fuel faster that 5/s unless it never fails to be less than 5/s which is not true based on the manual.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Instead of focusing on the spin rate of the indexing disk, look at the conveyer system that takes processed fuel from the LE goal and moves it to the recycling tote. The fuel will plop out of the conveyer and land near the center of the recycling tote. Analyze that arc. I'd be surprised if the speed of the conveyer could process faster than about 5BPS without launching them well over the recycling tote.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

In the various pics of the boiler that are floating around from kickoff, you can see that the impeller holds 14 balls around its circumference. From other pics on the official FRC Facebook page, you can see that the impeller is driven by what appears to be a miniCIM with a 2-stage VersaPlanetary gearbox. I don't see an encoder anywhere (though there could be one somewhere that's not pictured), so you can probably assume that these things are controlled only by a constant voltage DC source.

A miniCIM has a free speed of 5840 rpm at 12V. We don't know what reduction is being used, but the largest single stage that Vex sells is 10:1, so the gearbox is 100:1 or less. Obviously it could be a different reduction, the motor could be run at less than its free speed, and the impeller won't be packed fully during each revolution (and FIRST could still be iterating on the details), so YMMV, but if you assume 12V and 100:1 you get a theoretical max of about 13bps. This is just a piece of trivia at this point though given all the unknowns.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Ok, so help me here, I'm math impaired.

15 balls per second = 900 balls per min.

In a match that is over 2000 balls out of ~600 available at any one time. Into a single goal. :yikes: I consider 15 a second to be crazy talk, but I've been here a long time, so I can be convinced.

So I'll offer up the STEMRobotics "Why yes we can shoot that" challenge grant. Show me that you can shoot 12 balls a second for eight seconds (96 balls in total) and STEMRobotics will send your team $100. I'd like most to go into the goal, but really to do 12 a second will be great.

1) Line your robot up
2) Load 100 balls in, human help is fine
3) Shoot 96 of them in 8 seconds to the upper boiler goal
4) Profit!



Send me links with "Why yes we can shoot that" as the title.

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Not that we plan to try but for clarification for others. Are you limiting this offer to single shooters or will you accept parallel and/or multi-shooter batteries?

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

I hope and suspect that's the intention, though I'd still like to know the speed of the disc, i.e. the absolute max speed (if we understand the mechanics correctly). I hope we get this given that they've at least now released the goal capacities.

Not to give anyone the nightmares I have, but upon finding out personally that folks at HQ were struggling with this field element, my initial read of "average" was an attempt to handle "slop" in the number as they improved the device--or worse slop between boliers. But I do think it's more likely there's just a max disc speed at full capacity we ought to know.

Foster, I think STEMRobotics is going to need to keep an eye on these guys. Can you pay in Euros?

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

They're Canadian - they'll probably gladly take US dollars! Failing that, I'm sure they'd also appreciate Tim Hortons gift cards, or Canadian Tire Money. :D

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

I have concerns for Auto. If each boiler can average 5bps, If red and blue both shoot the same amount of balls in auto at the same time (everything equal except the boilers) if red boiler processes 4bps and blue (by lucky ball bounces in the boiler innards) hits 6, these boilers could be the ones determining the winners since balls still processing after auto ends are only worth 1/3 as much. Unlike can grabbing where everyone could see, boiler insides and counting is hidden from spectators. That could be frustrating seeing both teams put up the same amount of shots and seeing a 30 point difference

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

Bet

Re: Fueling Scoring Challenge
 

You'd best score those balls early then. Think of it as rewarding speed as well as accuracy.