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Unread 20-03-2012, 00:49
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PAR_WIG1350 PAR_WIG1350 is offline
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Re: Modifications to FIRST Gray Wheels for Better Consistency

The 8" solid wheels from 2010 (and 2011)? How would you fill those with foam? The best way to improve consistency is to have a system that works with a large margin of error. For example, our shooter puts sufficient backspin on the ball that it essentially drops straight down as soon as it hits something. This results rather lax requirements for the height at which the ball must reach the basket in order to score. Also, we have a shooter hood that has adjustable compression and angle. It is a bit late, but designing things like this into your mechanisms can save effort when you have to adjust things.

EDIT:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZipTie3182 View Post
We had a similar issue with consistency on leaving the shooter. However, we improved this by funneling the balls more precisely into the shooter, not modifying the wheels. Another way you could do it with wheels if your design allows for it is making it four wheels (if it's already not.) We used two wheels and couldn't change ours but we added two pieces at the top of our turret to ensure that balls entered the wheels at the same spot since before there was a good 3-4" wiggle room that they could enter variably at.

I don't know how your shooter is designed but if there's anyway you can make the balls enter more consistently I think that will be much more helpful in improving your shooter if you have a good squish on the ball.

-Anna
QFT

In testing we noticed that if the ball was too far forward in the feed mechanism it would contact the shooter wheels just a bit longer than if it were farther back. This was enough to slow the wheel and ball down resulting in a significant loss of range and height. To fix this we adjusted the funnel to get more consistent feed to the shooter wheels. The consistency of the feed to the shooter is related to the consistency of its output.
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Last edited by PAR_WIG1350 : 20-03-2012 at 00:56.