[NotInControl]

So just a few questions from your friends on 2168.

1. Can you share a little bit more about how you arrive at shooter geometry (compression, contact time, exit speed etc.) required to make the shot. Every year these factors seem to be areas teams must learn from trial and error, wondering if the poofs have a more polished process.

2. Can you share more about what drove the Team to a turret all together, as far as I know this is the first turret 254 has used in competition. I am curious what drove the design, where did 254 pull the inspiration from if anywhere, did any team mentors/students have prior experience with turrets in FRC applications in the past? I find it typical for teams to avoid certain solutions because they have never fielded them in an event and would rather choose a solution they have more experience with. That definitely is always a good approach in my opinion, just wondering how 254 gets over that idea to follow a solution they never fielded.

3. Can you share a little more about how you determine whether to go chain #25, #35, or belt. This has been an age old question, and I am not really asking which you think is better, but how do you go about choosing which one for the application. The reason I ask is some teams use belt, and use it for everything, some teams use chain and use it for everything, and other teams kind of are in the middle, they use one, have failure, and use the other, and keep bouncing around. I am wondering if 254 has a more scientific approach to the choice because it seems like 254 chooses different solutions more purposefully.

4. Going back to the chain question. I recognize that in certain years 254 has went from belt to chain or #25 chain to #35 chain etc. When this occurs do you have to redesign your drive rails or are their certain considerations into the design that makes changing from one to the other easy without much modification? (i.e certain spacing common to all)

5. Your Vision on the Nexus was stated to come out of necessity due to the unreliability of the Tegra, I am curious if the android solution seems like something 254 would use in the future or if there are equal pros and cons to possibly look for another? We did use a tegra, and after soldering come caps off to make it boot reliably we did not have an issue with the board. But again thats besides the point, looking for 254's opinion on the next best solution. Could you share some pain points, or cons/hurdles which needed to be overcome before the android solution was put into practice. I am sure many teams are testing an android solution in the off-season (we may be one).

6. Can you share more on the servo solution? How did you ensure the servo was meshed properly and never skipped? We tried to use a servo this year for our articulating hood, but slippage was a big issue so we pulled it for a multi position pneumatic solution right before our first competition. Typically on this team if it failed once we never try it again. I am curious how 254 was able to have a successful servo implementation. Would you mind sharing which servo was used, and how it was interfaced to the hood and did you have any issues with slippage?

7. How was the hood angle determined from vision? Was it based on distance to target, center of target to center of camera frame, or some other method?

8. How many drivers were used this year for the machine? I have heard that some years 254 has 2 drivers, some years 254 has 1 driver with a bunch of automated stuff. Could you share what was automated, requiring little/no commands vs what was always manual for this years bot?

Thank you very much for the answers to these questions. Truly is awesome learning from you.