ball feeder
 

It seems that most people are using the classic spinning wheel thrower. So, how is everyone feeding the ball into the wheel? i.e. do you have some kind of pusher or something that ensures the ball will actually make contact with the wheel instead of bouncing off of it? Of course, I'm really asking about a broader issue.

Re: ball feeder
 

OK keeping in mind the ball picker upper is the first priority and a thrower is second.
Cuz the picker upper stuff is in machining so we have time to look at throwing.
(I guess that is the end of the disclaimer)

So far it looks like gravity for the final approach to the spinning wheel.
i.e. we don't want any lost momentum to 'snatch' the ball away from any delivery system, hopefully we can find teh space for a small approach where the ball will roll downhill into the wheel chute.

So the short answer is gravity to feed.

Re: ball feeder
 

conveyor belt for us.

Re: ball feeder
 

We're going to have a basket above the shooter (balls brought up by conveyor), and then a piston to push them into the wheels (gravity down out of basket, piston into wheels)

Re: ball feeder
 

How do you make gravity feed work without balls getting stuck in the feeder?

Re: ball feeder
 

piston.

Re: ball feeder
 

Many teams in past years use rollers to positively grab balls to "roll" them into mechanism.
Using this concept a team can use rollers to roll a ball into a shooter

Re: ball feeder
 

I guess you can say we have two "shooters" in our robot. We plan on using the inertia of the ball when it exits the conveyor to propel it into the shooter. These balls fly out of our robot no matter where we want to put them, floor goals or high goal.

Re: ball feeder
 

In that case, would you consider the conveyor part of the shooting mechanism?

And by the same token, would a piston that pushes the balls be a part?

Re: ball feeder
 

We just use a gravity feed. Since our balls are stored in a trough (similar to a gumball machine), not a hopper, they can roll right in to the shooter. They are prevented from rolling in by a pneumatic.

Re: ball feeder
 

It seem like this we have used a little of everything :cool:
We will keep you guess :D
Good luck everyone this season