[mrwright]

Thanks for the feedback and questions. We will do a more thorough reveal soon that shows all of the subsystems.

We are looking forward to having LOTS of driver practice with this robot. We have really discussed the pros and cons of the mecanum setup and we knew going into this we would have to give our drivers plenty of time to practice with it. Our drive base is also configured so that if we decided to we could easily swap them out for traction wheels.

In terms of the shields we are using 1/4" poly carbonate sheets to hold the ball in place. It actually works really well. We put a slight fold on the bottom so that it angles inwards to pinch the ball in place. It also has enough flex to let it fly out when we shoot. We have hit it pretty hard on all sides and the ball has been held tight.

Our shooter setup is a spring loaded catapult with a winch. The winch has an air cylinder to engage the window motor to pull it down. The only problem we have had with the winch is that it takes about 5 seconds to fully reset the catapult. We are testing out different pulley diameters to optimize the speed.

Finally, on the last shot our operator had to readjust the ball because he didn't get it fully seated on the catapult with the collector arm. Ideally he will have this set in place before stopping aiming for the shot. These should be alleviated with driver practice. With our mecanum setup we will not be coming to a complete stop when shooting. Our trajectory on the ball gives us a lot of room for hitting the sweet spot.

If you have any more questions or comments please let us know. We will post more details soon...