[s_forbes]

We had two main competing designs during the first week: a single wheel turreted shooter for batter/midrange shots, and a catapult for shots from the outerworks.

Initially the entire design team was leaning towards the turreted shooter, but we built prototypes of both concepts and weren't happy with the ball to ball variance of the wheeled shooter. We were worried about aiming accuracy for the outerworks concept as well, but the catapult prototype showed good repeatability and was able to hit the target at that distance, so we settled on the catapult.

Then we wasted half of our build season on a drivetrain.