Rapid fuel feeding into shooter

[Brandon_L]

It seems we're all aiming for speed on our shooters, trying to max out balls per second, but I haven't seen a thread yet on how to feed these shooters at a matching rate. Just thought I'd open a discussion, as I think this has the possibility of being the most overlooked component this season. (This is sort of a compliment thread to Realistic high goal scoring rate)

We've seen the blender method used in some robot in 3 days videos, and it does work but it takes too much time to get the balls to the shooter in my opinion.

I'm a fan of the Zou Keeper single file line fed into the shooter, but this presents obvious space usage issues (limiting how many balls you can hold) and human loading issues

Perhaps some combination could work - A blender that lines the balls into a single file chute as you drive across the field so you have a stock of balls ready to go at the boiler, but you could only have so many balls ready to go and you're stuck again with the feed rate of the blender.

TL;DR How is everyone planning to get their fuel from a jumbled mess to the shooter in a timely fashion?

[s_forbes]

You call that a blender? THIS is a blender!

[caleby]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BndIuKTXsI

[JohnFogarty]

Those wheel agitators are nuts hahaaa

[Tio]

what fabric are you using?

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Tio

what fabric are you using?

If you are asking about the prototype videos that we posted, we are using a sticky shelf lining material from Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Duck-12-x...Liner/16486841 It has good grip on the balls, but if you use it like we did in those blender prototypes it wears out extremely quickly. Once it wears out it doesn't kick the balls out of the bin nearly as fast.

[Conor Ryan]

25 in 2006 had a brilliant shooter and straight up dominated Aim High. Essentially they had a flywheel and a mill to feed the ball. Flywheel on a live axle, and then a mill that went around the flywheel on a dead axle, both were powered by different motors. The mill allowed them to control the out put of the balls effectively, and run it backwards if anything jammed. Take a look at any of their match videos.

We are currently working on a prototype that will shoot 3 balls wide with a mill that goes around it. Looking forward to the results.

[Skyehawk]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

25 in 2006 had a brilliant shooter and straight up dominated Aim High. Essentially they had a flywheel and a mill to feed the ball. Flywheel on a live axle, and then a mill that went around the flywheel on a dead axle, both were powered by different motors. The mill allowed them to control the out put of the balls effectively, and run it backwards if anything jammed. Take a look at any of their match videos.

We are currently working on a prototype that will shoot 3 balls wide with a mill that goes around it. Looking forward to the results.

I am a firm believer in the wide shooters. Some really basic prototyping (i.e. a plywood box and some broom handles with poly cord as actuators, all run on cordless drills) proved an efficient way to unleash the hoard, and that was just guessing where the actuators should be and relying on gravity. From the testing that I witnessed we sent 42 balls out in 3.7 seconds, not bad IMO.

[JohnFogarty]

Originally Posted by Skyehawk

From the testing that I witnessed we sent 42 balls out in 3.7 seconds, not bad IMO.

How many made it into the goal?

[Skyehawk]

This was a hopper test, no shooter on it...

[maxnz]

I've been pondering this over the last couple weeks, so this is what I've thought of. We're building and testing it this week. Basically the balls roll in one direction and fall down into a chute that takes them to the shooter. They are able to fall into the chute whenever they want, which helps prevent jamming.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by maxnz

I've been pondering this over the last couple weeks, so this is what I've thought of. We're building and testing it this week. Basically the balls roll in one direction and fall down into a chute that takes them to the shooter. They are able to fall into the chute whenever they want, which helps prevent jamming.

You only included the assembly file in your GrabCAD. Without all of the parts files, we can't view the assembly. I suggest you look for a button in SolidWorks called "Pack and Go." It'll create a compressed folder of all the parts you need form the assembly.

[Skyehawk]

Originally Posted by maxnz

I've been pondering this over the last couple weeks, so this is what I've thought of. We're building and testing it this week. Basically the balls roll in one direction and fall down into a chute that takes them to the shooter. They are able to fall into the chute whenever they want, which helps prevent jamming.

When that hopper and feeder are static it will probably jam. It most likely needs some form of an agitator, which could be as simple as shaking the whole robot with the drivetrain. I only say this because of the several different arrangements of hopper concepts we tried there was almost always a configuration in which the balls 'self-locked' over the exit of the hopper. Not to say there isn't a passive design that works, we just didn't come across it.

[IronMustang9]

Maxnz-Looks like a cool design. In your drawing I see an inner radius of a circle roughly 6.5 from the center of the 2 7/8" banebot wheel, which looks to be intended for contact with the 5" dia. balls, but the outer circle is roughly 9.5" radius from the wheel center. This would not make contact with the ball that I can see so I am just curious as to the purpose of this outer radius in the design?

Thanks!

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by maxnz

I've been pondering this over the last couple weeks, so this is what I've thought of. We're building and testing it this week. Basically the balls roll in one direction and fall down into a chute that takes them to the shooter. They are able to fall into the chute whenever they want, which helps prevent jamming.

We prototyped something similar to this and found the balls would "bridge" against the back wall above the trough. You may need to look in to an agitator of some kind. Oscillating the back wall with a cam might be enough to break up the jams.