Kicker Design Challenge
 

Has any team been able to design a kicker to load, kick, and re-load, using only one motor?

This is what I'm trying to do.

-Pie Man

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

The stepped cam thing should work for that. The fun part is that we want to make ours adjustable as to how far it shoots...not so easy

btw the Kicker is indeed a real Challenge!

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

Yes!

Our kicker is only one motor with gear box!
No springs, no tubings, no pneumatic cylinder!

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

For those who are not aware, there is a robotics league called RoboCup. This league builds robots that are completely autonomous with the challenge to compete against humans by 2050. This league has been around for some time and they really have perfected kicker design. If you are confused in how to design a kicker, I highly suggest you do a search on Google or Youtube for RoboCup Medium Size to see some of these robots in action. Additionally, some of the teams websites have published papers that talk about their designs. Keep in mind that some of these designs may not be legal per the FIRST rules. Here is a link that might help you out.

Robocup Shooting Mechanism

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

Our team actually succeed doing the kick with one motor...

Probably will work with the FP motor. but still it is working with one motor and some springs, and can be also adjustable to the distance we want to kick the ball to.
The hard part in the mission this year is not just to kick the ball far, because you don't need to kick it more then 50feet and about 3-4feet in the air at the highest point. The hard part is to make your kicker adjustable so the kicker operator can adjust it to kick in different distances, for example if you are in the other alliance zone and moving to the midfield so other robot in your team can get in to defense you need to kick the ball 10-25feet less, so if you will build your kicker to kick the ball for 60-70feet and kick a ball from the midfield your ball will just bounce back to the midfield if not go out of the arena. Not to mention that if you build your kicker to kick even for 40feet you will most likely won't be able to get a ball into the goal unless you do it from the midfield or something or just push it to the goal. So teams with a really good kicker design that can adjust the distance the ball goes will most likely be "Wanted" because they can basically play in every part of the field without any problem.

Try thinking of that, i won't give you how the whole kicker works, but you can take guesses and a pic will probably be posted after the regional. (Or you will see the robot on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Team2230 )

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

We have one in the works using surgical tubing to kick the ball. Our design is inspired by team 284's 2008 robot seen here.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30419

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30400

We tried a similar setup on our 2008 robot and it seemed to work very well.

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

You are not building a catapult i hope

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

why? not allowed? :rolleyes:

No we are not building a catapult we are applying the system as a kicker :)

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

I'm seeing more teams realizing the importance of a variable force kicker.
Been looking for signs that someone is contemplating an 'aim-able' kicker but nothing yet.
I guess most teams are thinking a nimble bot will do in place of a directional kicker.
I haven't given up yet though, there's still time.

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

Your chain is touching the carpet as you go over the bump.

Violation of Rule <R08>

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...ighlight=chain

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

All you guys are using a Kick with one motor. Team#2632 has made a motor that is made up of a peice of wood, a bungie, a metal rod(Axis) and a metal arm(to pull wood). We are able to go 13 inches inprecisly 02.78 hundreths of a second...............BOOYAH!!!!:D :D :D :D :D

Re: Kicker Design Challenge
 

That's quite a motor. You should file for a patent :-)

But all seriousness aside, how did you measure to a precision of tenths of a millisecond?


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