Interesting to see the ball bouncing off the backboard....we sort of predicted that by throwing a ball at the wall, using no spin, topspin, and backspin. The backspin technique made the ball bounce down, in the direction of the basket. So our shooter prototype is a single wheel, below a flat plate. It seems to work well if the wheel is spun up over 3000 rpm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeLe2WWemWA
To do this, we borrowed a custom made Fisher Price gearbox from a previous robot, and tried it. The ball didn't shoot very far the first time we tried it, so we moved the gears in it around to get less gear reduction, so the wheel would spin faster. That did the trick.
We're thinking that using just the first gear from the 2012 FP gearbox, and the 2012 FP motor with it's 19 tooth gear, will work well. Making a gearbox like this kind of requires a lathe, and the ability to accurately make some holes in thick sheet aluminum, but it's relatively easy as far as building gearboxes goes.