[Toa Circuit]

Originally Posted by Madison

I'd love to see video of your robot catching. I think catching is going to be one of the most important abilities and it seems as if a lot of folks aren't giving it much thought.

How does your robot catch? Is it all reliant upon the driver positioning the machine appropriately? Does only one side open? How wide is the opening?

All sides open up. (Like they are in this video: http://youtu.be/xKflbL5oSqg ) When opened fully (protruding 20" in each direction past frame perimeter), It's a 68" (28" square bot + 20 one side + 20 other side) square that the ball just needs to have the center hit inside. If the ball is in, it centers itself either automatically, or by having the sides fold in and keep it in place. (It wouldn't be a very good thing to have the bot zipping down the field all open, anyways)
It is by driver positioning (no vision recognition of the ball), but _shouldn't_ require that much precision.

We will get some video and find out just how easy it is to catch as soon as we lay a few more wires- which should be soon.

The ball cannot pass through those walls. (Except the roller... which we will see how well that plays out. It should be a tight enough fit that it won't go through- or would require extreme precision to do so.) We plan on covering them in signboard or plexiglas for purposes of signage.