Catapult vs Wheeled Shooter

[mathking]

I think other posters are correct to point out that no choice is inherently better. The right choice is the one that works best on your robot. We prototyped some catapults and wheeled shooters. Initially we shied away from a catapult because the initial designs we tested uses pneumatics and we wanted to avoid the loss of space. Then the kids made some good motor powered catapults and we had two choices for fairly accurate, consistent shooting. Ultimately it was our design criteria that made the decision for us. The team decided that quick, consistent scoring was more important than necessarily high scoring. Wanting a robot that could score both low and high was easier on our chassis (our number one design priority was a robust, consistent drive train) with a two wheeled shooter than with a catapult because the two wheeled shooter was also able to gather and manipulate the portcullis and cheval. This made the overall robot less complicated and made it easier to fit under the low bar. The best catapult design we had would certainly have been a good choice. It just wasn't the best choice given our overall design and the priorities we set at the start of the build season.

I will also say I am glad that we create a design hierarchy at the start of each season. It made the (often passionate) debate over shooter design choices easier to make. And the kids who developed the catapult were left not with a "our design wasn't good enough" feeling but the realization that the two wheeled shooter design simply worked better with the rest of our robot.