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Originally Posted by cougarbytes
We're a brand new team, and have figured out using a programming language, but have been encountering problems with mechanically executing our ideas. So far, we have tried using two wheels rotating in opposite directions to propel the balls. However, even with gearing, we could not achieve the distance we were hoping and expecting. Our second idea was to pull back the balls like a slingshot, using surgical tubing. The problem we encountered here was that there was too much tension, and caused our metal to bend. When we lowered the tension, there was not enough power. We have another possible idea which uses a motor to pull back like a battering ram to release the ball. We are still thinking about our loading mechanism and have not tried any ideas for loading the balls.
Any ideas are appreciated!
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These seem like to of the first ideas that come to everyone's mind when they thought of this competition personally, from experiences in last years FRC Lunacy, the two opposing wheels work the best. One thing you need to remember with this design is compression, if your using the regular wheels as your rollers you don't have a lot of contact and you may in some cases only contact one wheel. So I suggest wrapping the wheels in a rubber material such as the allowed surgical tubing you could slice it down the middle to increase surface area then lay it on the wheel with a zip tie going through one of the outer holes on the wheel and then attach it that way. also if you have it so the wheels are positioned like the machines that throw footballs so that are horizontal to one another you will receive less distance and power than you would if the wheels were vertical and you stagger them so that you throw the ball up at an angle, preferably 45 degrees.
Another design I've seen is to have a long rod spinning as fast as you can get it then once it is up to speed then move the ball in front of it's path and you can whack the ball with decent forces. Hope this helps