Our original design was for a pan and tilt shooter similar to what we had in 2006. But thinking back to '06, as cool as the shooter was, it took a bit of effort to aim it and didn't have an exceptionally high rate of fire. We'd score okay, but nowhere near as well as the teams that just loaded up on balls, ran up on the ramp and "slam dunked" them home from point blank range.
None the less, the original plan was to re-do the shooter and make some improvements because, let's face it... turrets are cool. Even if we didn't win in '06 (we did well enough, and it earned us our first games on Saturday afternoon) that robot is still our #1 demo machine.
However we have a younger group of students this year, with fewer experienced machinists in particular, so we're altering plans and going for the power dump.
Hmm... I'm thinking that "shotgun" term might be a better one.
We also have to admit that we were influenced just a bit by
this. Way to go 2775... our design is quite different, but hopefully equally as devastating.
Jason