Question About 2014 Shooting

[christheman200]

Hi all,
I've noticed that a lot of successful teams did not use vision alignment in 2014. How did they determine that they were the correct distance? This is a very generalized question, but was it lidar, sonar, etc?

[CalTran]

2014 was a really really large vertical goal. You just fired on a trajectory that got to the right height and flattened out across a respectable distance.

[MaGiC_PiKaChU]

we used an ultrasonic sensor to detect the distance we were from the wall so the robot could adjust the shooter accordingly. Was successful, but ball inflation had too much impact on our shooting

[Kevin Leonard]

2014 teams either had a flat ball trajectory so the ball would go in from a large area of space or they had a set shot from the front of the low goal to shoot from. There were phenomenal teams in both categories. Additionally there were a ton of good teams that just scored low goals.

[MikLast]

Our vision in 2014 was there only to see if the high goal had a bonus or not. If it did, it shot. If not, it waited.

This year its our main way of seeing the field, has multiple crosshairs for aiming, and (as we get it down) auto-aim and shoot accurately on field during auto. (while solid in practice,its been very spotty during actual play.)

[AustinSchuh]

Lots of driver practice. He had a 3 foot range he had to shoot from. For the corner goal shot, he needed to be flat on the ground and touching the goal. As the season evolved and the cost of a missed shot climbed, we ended up switching to the higher accuracy shot. If we were to do it again, I'd look at figuring out distance to increase the reliability of the medium distance shot.

[Nuwanda]

The big difference between this year and 2014 is the lack of visibility. In 2014, an open field meant teams could see where they needed to be to make a shot, usually determined by a lot of practice. A lot of teams went with the very scientific method of 'that looks right'.