Catapult design tool

[phargo#1018]

For our 2014 robot design, FIRST FRC team 1018 chose a catapult launcher. As part of understanding how the catapult would work, and the design choices involved - and over time - I assembled the attached spreadsheet. Using this spreadsheet, students were able to evaluate spring choices, and evaluate placement choices.

This was the subject of a presentation at the Purdue FIRST forum the start of November.

My hope is that this sort of work will inspire an increase in analytical design practices.

[Ether]

You obviously invested a lot of time into this.

Have you considered creating some supporting documentation? It would lower the entry barrier.

Perhaps you could attach, or post a link to, the presentation you gave at Purdue.

[Deke]

The amount of detail used in this analysis is quite impressive, I like it!

I used some rough numbers for packaging a cam released catapult with some trajectory results a few nights during week 1; it was used for packaging our prototypes.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3027

I agree that it would behoove teams to do a little analytic work to save time on prototyping concepts.

[phargo#1018]

Thanks for the replys.
I will post the presentation from Purdue - I believe that I need to convert it from powerpoint to pdf.

Working on that ... I'll get that posted in the next day or two.

Last year, we didn't have any seniors on the team.
This year, we have a very strong group of seniors.
My hope is that they can look at at this spreadsheet and work on their own versions for the challenges that lie ahead in the 2015 build season!!

[Ether]

Originally Posted by phargo#1018

I will post the presentation from Purdue - I believe that I need to convert it from powerpoint to pdf.

I would prefer PowerPoint. You can ZIP it if necessary.

[phargo#1018]

Here is a zipped version of the presentation.