[Thad House]

We used 2 8in wheels side by side from the 2011 KOP. On the same shaft we had a 3lb flywheel with most of the mass at the outer edge.

Our shooter was different because it used a flat plate instead of a curved plate. This meant the wheel had varying compression as the ball traveled through the shooter. At the tangent point the ball had about 2 inches of compression, and the ball shot at a 55 degree angle. Ultimately the ball contacted the shooter for less then 90 degrees.

The main issue with this was that we couldn't shoot very far because the motor had to be at 70% speed in order to shoot the ball from the key. But the entire system was very accurate, and was not affected by ball density at all. It was much more affected by how sticky the ball was, but this was only a problem in our shop when we wore out the surface on all our balls. We were only affected once by ball density, and that was our last match at worlds, where we had a ball that was as hard as a rock. Because of our 2 inches of compression, we couldn't get the ball to compress enough, so it got stuck. But other then that there were no issues with the consistency of our shooter.

Our shooter proved that the entire ball system needed to be well thought out. We had a great shooter, but had trouble actually getting the balls into the narrow gap in the front of our robot. When we had balls they always shot, but we had trouble actually getting the balls.