Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

They will check you if it is in any question. If you start shooting from 1/2 court and are nailing them consistently someone will question it whether it is a ref or another team. At great Lakes they just abonded it but 1114 was questioned right after they won in the semi finals and moved to the finals.
A couple of teams were tested at Detroit from my view from our pits and i am not to sure anyone was checked at Western Michigan. But just note that if someone questions it I am pretty sure that you will be tested. :)

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

Thanks....The kids wanted the bot to be able to shoot from
different distances...during testing we accually had it shooting from
mid field.

Come by and see us at our pit and say hi.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

Team 1280 uses speed regulation on their ball shooting wheel.
It is not possible for the operators to set the wheel speed to
exceed 12 m/sec. A light on the OI informs them that the
robot is "out of range" with the speed limit activated.

With backspin, as 1280 uses, it is possible to center a shot in the 3
point goal from behind mid field. Without backspin, the maximum
distance would be a bit less.

If we must question the shooting speed of longer distance shooters
who have worked very hard to implement backspin, wheel speed
regulation, and a good targeting system; perhaps we should also
question the shooting speed of a close distance shooter that shoots
at rates exceeding 2 balls per second without wheel speed
regulation. Excessive shooting speed is not as visible to
someone watching the field in this case, but it constitutes just as
much of a competitive advantage, if not more.

Making a shot from mid field, with backspin, is not evidence
of excessive shooting speed. It is evidence of shooting just
short of the 12 m/sec speed limit...

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I would, but sadly I won't be in Atlanta next weekend :(



At least by the end of the weekend, 832 had become a ramp shooter though.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I see an advantage of having a high shooting velocity for the short distance shooters only in that it is easier for them to maintain the speed necessary to get the balls into the goal.

That being said it seems that no one would be exceeding the maximum balls per second scored when limited by the 12m/s rule because that would allow around 60 balls per second. However exceeding the speed does give teams a bit of advantage as they would not have to calculate the correct speed to shoot the balls at a lesser velocity but closer together.

I agree that the rules should be applied across the board, but typically it seems that a teams competitive advantage from their ability to score a lot of goals with a one shot at a time system is much more limited by their feeding mechanism speed than their shooter speed.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I was happy to see that the regional that I was at, the Finger Lakes Regional, actually checked all of the robots for ball speed. there were only 30 teams, so it was not hard to do this for every robot.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

Team 341 and 103, if i remember right were able to shot from the far very precisely. They most of the times used there autonomous to shot from the far and it worked pretty well.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I don't think its possible to make a goal much past half court if you stay under 12m/s. :yikes:

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I don't recall any teams being able to shoot far... and accurate. Although I consider accuracy making 3/4 of a robot's balls in.

As far as testing speeds at regionals, we actually had our shooter speed tested. In one match we made some balls from beyond half-court. Afterwards the head ref came over and requested that we go have our ball speeds checked.

It just makes sense to shoot up close.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

with backspin and other factors it is. The MUZZLE veolocity is 12 m/s, not the ball velocity (ie, if your robot is moving in the same vector as the direction you fire, the ball will end up with a speed > 12 m/s but the velocity it exits with relation to the "muzzle" will be <12 m/s).

Sorry if I confused anyone... :rolleyes:

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

Back on topic.

I have to mention 20 again. Not only can they hit from a distance they are accurate and have one of the most beatifully designed shooters I have seen. Also they were happy to talk about how they reached their design.

126 can also close to half court. They aren't as accurate but they shoot fast.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

107 can shoot from about half court, I think. They usually do this late in the match, after loading up. It was awesome to watch them in the finals. You thought they could only go on the ramp, then these balls start coming from no where. You look and it's 107 shooting from just past mid court.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

about the 12 m/s rule
we (1261) tried to radar our shooter with a gun, but to no success
since the balls dont have reflective surfaces, the gun couldn't pick them up
we never figured out if we were over, and wanted to observe gracious professionalism, but couldn't get a radar check, either at regionals or nationals
one person suggested that maybe FIRST figured out they couldn't clock it, at least easily, and decided to just let it go unless there was an appeal

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

Enforcement of the muzzle velocity rule varied somewhat from event to event. An earlier post explains how we handled it in St. Louis.

Re: DISTANT shooter BOTS
 

I can't speak for the events you were at, but at the three regionals I worked all you had to do was ask and the inspectors would check your shooter speed.

During build season Team 103 tried to use a sports radar gun, but like most got too much interference from the shooting mechanism, so we built our own time-of-flight speedometer to calibrate our shooter. We actually were rather worried that we were over the limit because of the range we were getting (past half-field), and needed the speed check to make sure we were legal (we were). As mentioned earlier and elsewhere, the lift generated by back-spin extends your range quite a bit! FWIW, we shot at 11.4 ~ 11.7 m/s - except for when the shooter got cranky and they just dribbled out...