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#1
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G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
My team is discussing strategies for shooting fuel at a high rate. A google search for "Wiffle ball shooter" produces some videos of leaf-blower powered shooter, and we thought this would be a good solution (powered by a legal motor/in a legal fashion) However, there are a couple sticking points. The first, G28:
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The second sticking point is whether using air in this fashion is legal at all. A cursory search of the rules does not explicitly disallow this (as in whether a fan is a pneumatic device )Thanks for your input. Please let me know if I missed anything in the rules that pertains to this question. We also intend to ask Q&A for clarification/intent when it opens. |
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#2
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
Q&A this for sure, but where is the ambiguity? It says don't use air to direct fuel outside of the robot. That is as straightforward as it gets. You are directing fuel, outside of the robot, using air. This isn't a "strict reading of the rules", it's what the rule means. Can't possibly be legal.
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#3
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
Unless you can figure a way to stop the air from the blower to stop at your frame perimeter while allowing the ball to pass through, I'd say it's not legal.
Definitely a Q&A though. |
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#4
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
Because the rule allowed for using air on fuel in your bot's volume rather than ban air moving fuel entirely, it is reasonable to assume that the GDC had a reason to make this distinction. I can think of three reasons to use air to move fuel inside your volume
1) A system similar to a drive-up bank tube, to move fuel through a path in your robot, presumably to your shooter. 2) To agitate fuel in hopper to help it find its way to the shooter intake (like a lottery ball machine) 3) To actually shoot the fuel. If this was their intent, they didn't consider the final residual effect of air on the fuel after it left the volume, but perhaps that was an oversight. Hoping they address this in the first update, rather than have to wait for the A to a Q. |
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#5
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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Assuming that you aren't sustaining a stream of pressurized air as the ball continues out of the robot, I think it's very reasonable to think that this rule allows a ball to be shot from within the volume of the robot using pressurized air. -Phil |
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#6
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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#7
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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#8
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
good point. That's not "forced air" to a reasonably astute observer, but a fan is. what's the threshold for forced air, and will i need an anemometer in the inspection station?
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#9
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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I don't mean to make this more black and white than it is, but it's not a very ambiguous rule to me. People have an idea in their head what they think the rule is supposed to be for, and then they decide that something else explicitly prohibited by the rule actually isn't, because it doesn't match that notion. The rule says you can't direct (or redirect) balls outside of your robot with air. Can you provide an explanation as to how that isn't what an air cannon is doing? |
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#10
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
I think that is the key word. If you think that an air cannon, designed to launch balls, inside of it's robot's volume violates that then I will direct all of our speed controller fans towards your robot in spite.
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#11
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
My reading of the rule stands with many others. If you want to levitate whiffle balls inside the volume of your robot, go for it. You may not, however levitate whiffle balls outside of your volume. I think air cannons will be legal.
Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QBk1c5hfhE I believe the cuts on the ball in the video are different than the FRC game pieces, but somebody should give this a shot - just for fun... or to win. |
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#12
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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All that said, I think it's clear that the defensive used of forced air is illegal from that rule. As for a shooting mechanism... I won't even pretend to know how it will be ruled. The penalty is pretty rough for it, though, so I wouldn't want to take a chance on it without first getting an iron-clad Q&A response. And as the Q&A doesn't open up for another 2 days, that's too late for me to spend time or energy on pursuing such a design when I have other options that can be prototyped right now for shooting balls. |
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#13
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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#14
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#15
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Re: G28 Clarification - Air Powered Shooter
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1) Prevent changing the coarse of fuel shot by your opponent via air. 2a) Prevent a leaf blowing strategy to gather all the fuel on the floor to your own end of the field. 2b) Similarly, blowing the 50 fuel coming out of the hopper that you aren't catching in your bot to your end of the field. The question is whether their intent was/will be to prohibit air powered shooters. |
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