Re: Ball Damage
 

Earlier I posted that our shooter was seriously ripping up the balls and was seeking to hear if other teams had developed shooters that did not.

We have since gone back to the drawing board and have replaced the wonderfully grippy 8"x2" (actually closer to 9" dia.) Skyway pneumatic wheel with two 8" skyway kitbot wheels and rebuilt the turret to account for the reduction in diameter.

Our ball velocity is down a bit... but that's not a bad thing seeing as how we were well over 12 m/s before. Tonight we hit the 3 point goal from 20' out about 8 times out of ten (the variation was due to how the ball was fed in, I believe... we'll call it human error) with no noticable ball damage.

A note to teams that are ripping up the ball... the rethink and redesign advice is probably good advice. Ball shooters that do essentially zero damage can be built. Ours is a single wheel design (the two skyway wheels are on the same shaft) and it sounds like there are many other zero-damage designs out there.

Thanks to the other teams that have posted their successful zero-damage ball shooting results... it was sounding for a while like EVERYONE was ripping the ball to shreds like we were.

Jason

Re: Ball Damage
 

My team is also using a two wheel design, but the wheels are about 5" apart center to center, and are angled inward. Before we angled them inward, the sharp rubber corners would cut into the ball as it was being shot. Now with angled wheels, we have tandential contact, so it works beautifully. Plus having the wheels out like that reduces the height of the shooter, and gives you a mechanical advantage because you're pushing the ball from closer to its center. With six inch wheels direct driven off the CIM, we're getting exactly 11.6 m/s, and about 32 feet at 45 degrees. And zero damage to the balls.