Who still thinks pneumatic catapults won't work for this game?

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Pneumatic catapults are definitely viable and the use of pulsing to vary shots are effective.
We definitely used your idea in addition to other mechanical ones in order to achieve high goal shots.

OPR though to me is over-rated. Up until the last Quals match in NL during Week 2, we were well over 100. From that point on and in Dallas the following week, we shifted our focus to just assists, and the role we played differed in eliminations in Dallas as well.
I would like to believe that your alliance won primarily due to having the best teamwork and execution vs. your opponents.
At CMPs, I see it as being no different than what it took at the regional level play. When scouting, our team hasnt and wont even bother to look at OPR as a basis for selecting teams, if in the top 8 alliance captain position.

Congratulations once again on winning the Arizona regional!

That is funny because I tell that to my team all the time, but I jumped on the chance to brag about it when we have been ranked so high! It lended convenient validation for our design choice after being told what we were doing was the wrong approach.

[wireties]

I dissed the idea of a pneumatic catapult early in the design process. I was soooo wrong. We have seen many nice pneumatic-based designs.

[Abhishek R]

624 went with a pneumatic catapult as well this year; its consistency combined with a pretty good trajectory lets us shoot from almost anywhere in the forward zone and truss with the same shot. We don't really even have to vary the shots; same shot for truss, for moving while shooting, for stationary shots at the one point goal or farther away, it's quite interesting how it turned out. I would say it's made a good season for us so far!

[ToddF]

The video we posted of our pneumatic catapult prototype was viewed almost 800 times. I had the pleasure of having someone come up to me at our regional this weekend and tell me that their catapult was based on the video we posted. Such a compliment!

After posting the prototype video, the design evolved drastically. By switching from one to two cylinders we found that we decreased our air consumption. We use high flow servovalves and pulse to get variable trajectory shots, though we've found that pulsing consumes a lot of air.

We experimented to find the lowest system pressure which produced a consistent trajectory shot. We added a pressure sensor to our HP supply to monitor pressure. We use a spike to power our camera light ring and a LED strip on the other side of the robot. When the pressure drops too low for a good shot, the lights turn off. That way, as long as the lights are on, the driver and operator know, without taking eyes off the robot, that the pressure is good.

It works great. We used it to get what we think was the highest un-penalized match score at our regional. Video here. Notice that we started just a little low on our precharge pressure. The indicator lights go off during the second auto shot, and it falls a tad short. After that, you can see the lights going off during the match as we operate the pneumatics and consume air, and then back on as the compressor catches back up.