Disk Orientation

[Orion.DeYoe]

Originally Posted by Keefe2471

I have been observing and commenting (in my head ) on various threads for the past few weeks. One topic I really wanted discussed but I havn't seen brought up is disk orientation from the ground. My team decided early on that this would be critical to real accuracy and distance not to mention dependability on the field. But I have yet to see an intake that solves this issue between the ground and the shooter.

Am I just looking at the wrong robots? Or have teams decided that Robot in Three Days proved that it didn't matter?

Thanks

I though this same way early on in the season. Until we built our shooter prototypes. When you shoot out the discs and then land on the floor, 4/5 times they land upright. Frisbees are airfoils and they want to stay upright. So we decided that picking up and shooting upside-down discs isn't likely or important. Besides, the optimal situation is to never let a disc land on the floor, you want them all to go in the goal.

[Lil' Lavery]

Many of the high range shooters will likely rely heavily on the human player station, where disk orientation can be controlled.

[mathking]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Many of the high range shooters will likely rely heavily on the human player station, where disk orientation can be controlled.

I agree. I think that most of the frisbees shot this year will be loaded at the station. We can load four frisbees in two seconds at the loading station. We have a prototype of a frisbee gathering device (thank you 1712 for some helpful design ideas) but even if it ends up working perfectly we think we will still load most of our frisbees at the loading station.

[Keefe2471]

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe

When you shoot out the discs and then land on the floor, 4/5 times they land upright. Frisbees are airfoils and they want to stay upright.

Was that including contacting the wall? I would think that the wall would increase the randomness of the frisbees orientation by more then that.

Also, have you tried it firing against the nets that surround the field. One strategy I see being imployed by feeder station bots is if they are blocked by an 84 in defense bot (which they will be if that strategy becomes a meta-game). They simply change angle and chuck them as hard as they can at an angle designed to get over such a defense bot. Then they need a robot with intakes and at the far end to suck frisbees in and fire them. Which it sounds like doesn't require orientation at all. So in that case a third robot needs to be brought in to take those frisbees which are landing fairly randomly do to the net having a bit of give. In that case orientation by that bot is key in order to insure range and some accuracy so it could then quickly turn and fire those to its corresponding offense bot on the other end.

Not sure if that made any sense. I am currently suffering from overexposure to coolant fumes

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Keefe2471

Was that including contacting the wall? I would think that the wall would increase the randomness of the frisbees orientation by more then that.

Unless the wall matches the curvature of the top surface of the frisbee, then I don't see them falling upside down after hitting a wall. The only possible case would be if there is no rotation on the frisbee. The net on the other hand might cause some more variances, but unless you were trying to hit the net, you're not going to hit it.

[Keefe2471]

Originally Posted by Wing

Unless the wall matches the curvature of the top surface of the frisbee, then I don't see them falling upside down after hitting a wall. The only possible case would be if there is no rotation on the frisbee. The net on the other hand might cause some more variances, but unless you were trying to hit the net, you're not going to hit it.

Most of the videos that teams have posted have shots hitting the wall with serious force at an angle of at 45 degrees or less from the bottom of the frisbee to the wall if they are shooting from the area around/in front of the pyramid. Will that change how they land? Will a long and herefor more flat shot illustrate what your are hypothesizing better?

This just makes me more excited for week 1 and seeing how the game developes with time. The super complicated stratagem I posted earlier was more of a championships level of depth in an alliance. I think you will see 2 of those three positions filled on most alliances that win early regionals. Or not.

[Bruceb]

Just adding a tiny bit of info on 706's flipper to up the curiosity factor. Our fully internal disk flipper is completely passive. No sensors, no coding no electricity, no pneumatics and fully effective at flipping upside down bee's and leaving right side up bee's alone.
Pics coming soon.
Bruce