Re: Dumpers?
 

How does shooting make it harder to program than dumping?

Re: Dumpers?
 

Many people (me included) believe that to be very effective a shooter will need to automatically target opponent's trailers. These trailers will be moving so a shooter will likely need to not only find the trailer, but also figure out how to lead it and shoot were it will be when the ball gets there and not where it is.

You can have an effective dumper that relies on driver skill for positioning, but it will likely be much more difficult to do so with a shooter.

Re: Dumpers?
 

One good thing about dumpers is the way they self-align on impact with the target trailer (not just for aiming, but also for distance). With a wide aspect ratio, you get a 25" wide ball collector opening between the 6" bumper segments. When you make contact with the hexagon shaped trailer (moving or stationary) on this slick surface, the robot and trailer shift to bring everything into proper position and alignment. A "bump & dump" bot that can unload in a second can score almost 100%.

Shooters have the advantage on distance, but they are at the mercy of technology or luck to toss a ball inside a 25" circle.

As for finding stationary robots, have you ever seen an FRC game where robots weren't stuck in traffic jams? Even overdrive had lots of stopped robots.

Re: Dumpers?
 

Team 2915 is building a dumper.

we use a conveyor system in front to pick up balls, then, we use a pneumatic actuator to lift the bottom of our hopper (holds 6 balls) till it tips them out the front of the bot. it easily gets at least 2/3 of the balls in the oposing team's trailer...

basically, we drive up behind another team, and dump... we don't need to stop, as the forward momentum seems to help the balls come out of the hopper (i know, physics say that momentum shouldn't matter, but, in the words of adam savage: "I reject your reality and substitute my own")

we can also drive up to the side of a trailer and get most of the balls in.

the belts also hold an additional 5-6 balls, and are reversible, so that you can eject balls to the human player if needed.

-Z

Re: Dumpers?
 

Our programmers should know the answer to that... they've been madly programming our robot for about 3 weeks now! We're making an attempt at hitting a moving target, and I can confidently say that this is the most technologically complex robot we've ever built (by far!).

If we didn't have programmers working on the automatic aiming turret, I think a dumper would have been the only sensible robot to build. Fortunately we have a lot of programmers this year, and it's turning into a really nifty project.

Re: Dumpers?
 

We're dumping using pneumatics.

We're a bit worried at this time about having a finished robot though...stupid snow days killed us this year.

Pneumatics are killing weight as is our ball conveyor...I'm not too optimistic about this year.

Re: Dumpers?
 

team 342 dumper video

Here is our dumper. The video was taken before fine tuning, but we still got 75% in. We are now at about 85% - 90% getting in the trailer. 2 Jaguars, 1 victor, 1 spike, actually following KISS- priceless:cool:

Re: Dumpers?
 

Our bots would be such good alliance partners....more like twins. :cool:

Great bot. Ours is basically the same, I didn't like the KISS factor of our robot this year because I like machining complex parts plus there weren't many things to build. hehe

Re: Dumpers?
 

Sure, shooters have the potential to be high scorers. But the way I see it, dumping is just so easy and efficient.

Re: Dumpers?
 

Have you tried it with the bumpers on your robot, when you're 3.5" farther out from the trailer?

I agree properly built dumpers, especially those with power assist exiting, can be very effective.

Re: Dumpers?
 

wait, we have to have bumpers:ahh: lol. No, we just put the bumpers on today, I'll have some video of it dumping with the bumpers once I get caught up on homework.

Any others with dumper video?

Re: Dumpers?
 

We're working on a "Power Dumper".
Basically a cross between a dumper and a shooter.

Ah..long range dumper. :)

I'll try to post a video later this week.

Re: Dumpers?
 

I just revised our method.......I had some other people come up with a design, which turned out to be an un-aimable shooter. See as this is also our first year, and we started building this last week, a dumper seems the best choice.

We'll see!

Re: Dumpers?
 

We Finally worked most of the bugs out of our powered dumper. It's able to offload 10 balls in about a second with a maximum range of about 1 foot.

We've codenamed it "The Shumper"

I think Dumpers will have a significant advantage in the number of balls scored in one instance. Our robot for example can hold 20 balls and we can offload them with about 80% accuracy in 3 seconds or less. As long as you have a good driver behind your dumper you'll be a force ot be reckoned with.

Re: Dumpers?
 

I agree^^

Our robot sounds very similar, with a holding capacity of about 18 and the ability to power dump all of them within a few seconds.