Team 2594's shooter prototype

[ewemp]

Here is a rendering of their CAD work so far. Comments?

[davidthefat]

What is the purpose of the robot? Is it a feeder?

[xSAWxBLADEx]

can it pick off the ground???

[Ernst]

With the shooter that low to the ground, it seems very easy to block balls that your robot shoots.

It looks like you can only load balls from the slot, which isn't necessarily a disadvantage, as long as your shooter is accurate and powerful enough to shoot from across the court. Otherwise it'll take awhile to traverse the court to make shots.

[Thermal]

Things to watch for in this design:

-The hopper is borderline unusable in its current state. It's going to be jam city at the feed hole, so make sure you account for that in your next revisions. I recommend using an "active hopper" or at least have a functional agitation system to keep the balls feeding nicely. Look at some paintball hoppers for inspiration, they've tackled that problem quite nicely in the last decade.
-The geneva mechanism can easily jam if it runs too fast, or allow multiple balls through (which i'm not sure you want or not) if it moves too slow. Either way, ball pinching might pose a very significant problem for you. I like the idea though, work on its implementation
-In the current orientation, it looks like it's only possible for you to score in the bottom hoop. While that isn't a bad thing, it is unfortunate that you limit yourself to that one hoop with a mechanism that cannot impart any backspin on the ball, and will be shooting balls at a flat angle right into the backboard (which is probable that the ball will just rebound off and miss the rim) If you move the rollers real slow, then why go with 2 FP's (which I assume you're modelling with cims for easy cadding). In all, the shooter choice just doesn't seem to mesh with your strategy.

Good luck with your future iterations, and remember to prototype these things out! I'd love to see a working geneva ballfeeding mechanism

[spud nut]

The whole unit has been prototyped and functions extremely well. The balls do not jam and the gear has no problems feeding the balls. The shooter rotates from 0 degrees to 50 with no problem hitting the top hoop.

Thermal...lovely gracious professionalism. Why don't you just come right out and say that my team should just pack up and go home. I'm so glad that First has people like you to represent them.

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by spud nut

The whole unit has been prototyped and functions extremely well. The balls do not jam and the gear has no problems feeding the balls. The shooter rotates from 0 degrees to 50 with no problem hitting the top hoop.

Thermal...lovely gracious professionalism. Why don't you just come right out and say that my team should just pack up and go home. I'm so glad that First has people like you to represent them.

I'm not quite sure where you're getting that from in my post.... are you implying that critiquing designs on chief delphi and making concerns of a design known is in poor taste? I'd never post one of my designs on CD without not only expecting, but wanting people to point out things that can possibly go wrong or not quite work as expected. Your member posted nothing but a picture with no explanation of the mechanisms or any hint that you've had working prototypes of these mechanisms. I had to go off of some assumptions and I made that known.

I'm sorry for insulting you, but bear in mind that was never in my intentions.

Edits: Grammar, diction fixes.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by spud nut

The whole unit has been prototyped and functions extremely well. The balls do not jam and the gear has no problems feeding the balls. The shooter rotates from 0 degrees to 50 with no problem hitting the top hoop.

Thermal...lovely gracious professionalism. Why don't you just come right out and say that my team should just pack up and go home. I'm so glad that First has people like you to represent them.

There is nothing wrong in what Thermal stated. In fact, I would advise you to follow his advice as well.

[P. Fuller]

Thermal...lovely gracious professionalism. Why don't you just come right out and say that my team should just pack up and go home. I'm so glad that First has people like you to represent them.

Just going to put it out there; when you post a drawing of a design and ask for comments, please don't get angry when someone posts some sincere constructive criticism and then says good luck and that they would love to see a working feeder like you posted.

But, that is besides the point. Overall you have a very interesting design that I would love to see in action, but as ZehP said, depending on how high your actual shooter is off the ground, that might make it easy to block with opposing robots. You might also want to consider a way to pick balls off the ground, because going all the way across the field (and over the bump/bridge) to be fed might turn into a major pain during patches.

I would be very interested to see your design process, specifically why you chose the gravity fed hopper over the other types of ball collecting mechanisms possible.

Good luck!

[SteveGPage]

Originally Posted by spud nut

Thermal...lovely gracious professionalism. Why don't you just come right out and say that my team should just pack up and go home. I'm so glad that First has people like you to represent them.

Engineers, like Thermal, who share their experience, expertise, and advice with students, mentors, and other teams, is exactly what FIRST wants to represent them. If you are looking for "sticky sweet platitudes" instead of realistic and professional advice, then I think you have missed what "Gracious Professionalism" means.

[spud nut]

Ok, I will agree that I may have gone a little overboard on my assumptions. I have a tendency to do that every once in a while. So I hope we can accept that I wasn't thinking with the clearest head and move forward from here.

I'm just very proud of my students this year and how they have really stepped up and have worked harder and with more of an engineering process then they have for quite a few years. They have produced some quality CAD work for being a team with over 50% 1st year participants ( mostly Freshmen). Which I beleive is what was stated in the first post that we were presenting the cad work. I am proud of my team and may have been a little too protective of the descouraging aspects of some comments.

I have grasped the concept of the right to fail and grow from it. Even if it turns out to not be the perfect robot I am proud of the spirit my team has shown. I apologize to anyone who I offended previously.

[ewemp]

The picture I posted was a sub assembly of the shooting system. will sit on top of the chassis and has an adjustable angle for the shooting wheels. The hopper will also be fed from the ground using a belt system similar to what was seen on many bots in 2009. The hopper will only allow for three balls and the geneva wheel will only allow one ball at a time. I posted the picture on our way out, so I didnt put in a lot of relevant information. Thank you for the ideas of things to look for in our design. late nights make for grumpy teachers ;-)