Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

I don't think that having a robot pick up from the front and back will make a huge difference. Turning 180 degrees could be just as fast. In my opinion I would rather have one intake that works really well, rather than have a way to pick up from both sides that is just average.

This.

We designed our 2012 robot to pick up from both sides, and it was a useless functionality at best. Turning the robot is way faster than going for the other intake, and the drivers just like to think of one spot on the robot as an "intake zone." If you saw us play at Davis (and I'm sure you did), you'd have noticed that we had trouble picking up balls, and almost never used our back intake. Moral of the story? Intake speed and ease of alignment are a ton more important than a two sided intake. Save yourself some design complexity and go with a one sided intake.

[geomapguy]

Maybe the best use of a two-way ball pickup was 624 in 2012. They used it to have an auto mode where they shot balls retrieved from the co-op bridge in addition to their pre-loaded balls

[atucker4072]

Originally Posted by geomapguy

Maybe the best use of a two-way ball pickup was 624 in 2012. They used it to have an auto mode where they shot balls retrieved from the co-op bridge in addition to their pre-loaded balls

Why not just pick up balls from the back or have a rotating shooter?

[geomapguy]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

Why not just pick up balls from the back or have a rotating shooter?

not sure...I'm not on 624

[atucker4072]

Originally Posted by geomapguy

not sure...I'm not on 624

I know I was just pointing out that the other options that could have been done and thinking why they would have done it opposed to other ideas.

Overall there is no need for a way to pick up from both sides of a robot this year because it will be just as fast as making a 180 degree turn. Also do to limited space you couldn't have a shooter that could shoot with a huge distance. But this is just drawing from the ri3d revel videos.

[themccannman]

Yes, one intake on each side.

#3ballorbust

[evanatch]

Our team spent a lot of time discussing this today, and reached the conclusion that having a double-sided pickup would cause more problems than it would solve for us. We are using a single roller arm to pick up balls (similar to Build Blitz team JVN), and the double sided intake (via flipping the arm to the other side) resulted in some weird geometry and problems storing the ball. We figured the small advantage gained by not having to turn around in some situations wasn't really worth the trade off (especially since we're a rookie team). Instead, we chose to place our pickup on the back of the robot, and the passer/shooter on the front to better facilitate passes.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by atucker4072

Why not just pick up balls from the back or have a rotating shooter?

We had a rotating turret, but we stopped using it by our first regional.

The double sided intake was extremely useful, and was one reason we were able to keep up with other top teams, as well as for a 4-ball autonomous and effective bridge tipper, we were able to advance to the semifinals at CMP and Number 2 seed at IRI. But there were a lot of game pieces in 2012, so being able to pickup from multiple sides was a bonus (I believe 1717 had a two-sided pickup as well, and it worked great for them too just as it did for us).

This year, you could make a case for a double sided pickup, but you could just turn around as well. Comes down to what your team wants to do and how you integrate them.

Also...I don't think I've seen many 2-roller intakes in any year? 2011 was the only year I saw some effective 2 roller systems, but 2012 and 2013 all featured 1-roller + ramp intakes.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

Also...I don't think I've seen many 2-roller intakes in any year? 2011 was the only year I saw some effective 2 roller systems, but 2012 and 2013 all featured 1-roller + ramp intakes.

Double Roller intakes have been around for quite a while. I can remember them in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Since 2008 and 2011 were the most prominent, and this game being like 2008, I see a lot of double rollers being utilized by teams.

[Libraryfanatic]

Lots of discussion about moving intakes around to pick up from multiple sides...what about two intakes? It seems like it might be hard to package everything.

[bEdhEd]

Originally Posted by Libraryfanatic

Lots of discussion about moving intakes around to pick up from multiple sides...what about two intakes? It seems like it might be hard to package everything.

The design we have planned takes up as much space as a single sided intake, but has a few extra pieces, of course. It shouldn't be hard to package at all. I don't know about how other teams are trying this, if they are, and if their design is difficult to make fit especially if their intakes are separate.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by dodar

Double Roller intakes have been around for quite a while. I can remember them in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Since 2008 and 2011 were the most prominent, and this game being like 2008, I see a lot of double rollers being utilized by teams.

I see, before my time