[hrench]

Team 1108 has built catapults a few times, but mostly we've decided that changing the strength of the shot this year isn't useful.

We have the shot set up so we can hit from anywhere on the batter to about one-foot out while the shot is on the 'upward' arc of the parabola.
And if we're just off the outer-works, to about five foot in front, it will hit on the downward arc of the parabola.
So there's only about six or eight feet in between that we can't hit. So we don't shoot from there.

In Aerial assist, we had a pneumatic catapult there too and it was useful to have a short-shot for passing and for passing back to the human player. That year, we put the two (left and right) catapult cylinders on separate air solenoid valves and for the short-shot, we only activated one side.

In Rebound Rumble, we actually made a motor-driven sliding mount for the catapult cylinders' fulcrums so that they could have a longer stroke, but in truth, after a few games we learned that the drivers chose to make set-shots from the initial length rather than try to decide how many inches-in could correlate to how long-of-a-shot. If they moved the control, we didn't have good reporting to them how long the shot would be, so they would miss.

But unlike others, we usually hold the catapult with an electro magnet while filling the air cylinders, so we can also change the amount of time we hold-down before release and that can change the shot. But we tried that in practice for Aerial Assist and it just wasn't necessary or helpful. If they shoot from the same areas every time, it was just easier.