[BJC]

For teams who are using a crab drive or Macanum wheels consider this...

in past games involving balls (including last year) many of the balls found their way next to the wall. In addition, many robots are going to push balls towards or next to the walls as a result of tring to gain "possession" of them.

Due to the position of the goals and bumpers this year it would not be hard to run belts on the outermost side of your robot (take off maby an 1.5in on either side to make room.) If these belts were going fast enough and made of the right material you could run your robot sideways into the wall and rocket balls right into the goal (as the ball would have spin that kept it pinned against the wall as it traveled). According to the rules this is not a possession therefore you could do this with several balls at a time and still have one in your robot to shoot.
This seems like a relativly easy thing to impliment and would give teams that had it a huge advantage over teams that had to run straight into the wall, back up, and turn to shoot by which time a defender or goalie could get in the way. In fact this seems actully seems like the only way to score multible times in a row.

Now that sounds great but here's the tricky part

-How will the balls would fair going over the bump(s)?
-How would this aparatus affect your robots ability to go over a bump?
-How fast will the belts have to go?
-Is this even plausable at all?

Have a great season everybody, and I hope to see some robots with this feature!