[martin417]

Everyone seems to be focused on whether or not a team can achieve the distance on a given shot. I believe that will be fairly easy to do. The real problem with distance is accuracy. remember that no design can be 100% consistent, and higher velocity could increase the error. The error in the landing point is given by:

err=tan(angle error) X distance

(assume two dimensional, looking down on the bot, the problem is compounded in three dimensions)

If the angle error is small, the tangent of that angle is small also, but if the distance is large, even that small error can make a big difference in landing point.

Example:assume you launch and have a 1° error in your launch direction. If you are 10 feet from the goal, you will have an error of ~2.1 inches. Assuming your aim was perfect, the ball will land ~2.1" from the center of the hoop and score.

Now move to 50 feet away (for round numbers) and keep the error the same. Your positional error is now 10.5 inches. if your aim was perfect. you will hit the rim and very likely not score. The center of the ball will be 1" outside the rim.

If you now add vertical angle error into the equation, it becomes much worse because your distance has the same relationship. Hitting a long field shot will probably happen, As I have seen full court shots hit in basketball, but I doubt many games will be won due to super long shots.