Quote:
|
Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain
I don't see why it's not gracious professionalism. I mean maybe it's just my interpretation but I don't think that just because you exhibit gracious professionalism why you can't be super competitive, or take advantage of a field element.
In 2004 team KillerBees had a brilliant autonomous mode idea. They did a drive by on the autonomous balls that did a early release of all those balls they stored over the player stations. Their robot continued to the end of the Field and then as soon as manual mode started they sucked up your balls and carried them off, leaving you at a distinct disadvantage. It wasn't ungracious and it wasn't unprofessional, It was smart. I say if you see a niche that can be filled and gives you an advantage without violating the rules or stopping others from enjoying FIRST then go for it! It's actually not too different then parking your robot in front of the lower goals to prevent people from scoring. Try telling teams they can't block balls because it's not fair, your going to see a lot of it anyway and why not? It's smart and makes sense.
On a more technical view, I'm not sure how well it would work. One thing to consider is that the air will dissipate pretty quickly. I mean I can't remember seeing a leaf blower with more then 10 ft of range (though we do have stronger motors). Also leafs are pretty light, will it have enough force to move a ball? how about move a ball traveling at a high velocity? I recomend using more like a cannon in that you aim it slightly at a angle to slow the ball and displace the balls trajectory. I'm going to take a look at the inside of my leaf blower to see if it's gears could handle our motor's.  |
Rephrase - whats what my team thinks. therefore we will not be doing that =p. I think it might be ever so slightly ungracious but eh, you're right, its not that big of an issue
I've already figgured out how to do this if you're interested.. you point it at a 75 degree angle, bot at the edge of the ramp. even if air dissapates, your barell should be exactly at 6 ft, you have only 2.5 ft to traverse... thats pretty $@#$@#$@#$@# easy with a 220 mph... now we'll assume ball is traveling at somewhere around 7 m/s towards the goal.
lets say you halve the flow-speed every meter.., (probably accurate) 98.34 m/s = 220 mph. now, we have a 2.5 ft gap or .762 meters..
so thats around 57 m/s air flow around the ball, this may or may not be significant.. now for the drag calculation...
we can use
http://www.fluidmech.net/jscalc/cdre01.htm to calculate force
which is 6.24 newtons.. m =.18 kg , therefore a is 34m/s^2 !!!. This only increases as you go closer.... a 34 m/s^2 accleration is definatley nontrivial.
this makes a few assumptions ..
a). halving for every meter.. likely but could be optimistic
b). that you're only targeting the nozzle width, a wider nozzle would decrease v.
c). the key is how fast you can get the fluid (air) to go. If you can pump air at around 220 mph (commercial 7 amp leaf-blower) then you've blocked the goal for good.
a few problems
a). 220 mph is under small nozzle width, blocking a 1 m goal may not be best
b). motor may not be powerful enough compared to the beasts in leaf-blowers
c). 7 amps is alot.. you have 12 ampere-hours on that battery, yes you'll drain that sucker in less than an hour with nothing else running... that, is frightening.
Also I dont think you can even draw 7 amps (correct me if im wrong)