what was the best shooting mechanism for 2016?

[electroken]

Originally Posted by 1493kd

Ditto, I would love to see some more details of your catapult. I loved watching your robot put shot after shot in the high goal. I figured it was spring or pnuematic powered.

No springs or pneumatics. It is a fully electric catapult powered by 2 mini-CIMs. Steve describes it here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=47

[1493kd]

Originally Posted by electroken

No springs or pneumatics. It is a fully electric catapult powered by 2 mini-CIMs. Steve describes it here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=47

Thanks I had already read that post, I was wondering if you had any additional information and pictures.

[electroken]

Originally Posted by 1493kd

Thanks I had already read that post, I was wondering if you had any additional information and pictures.

This side view shows the catapult arm after it has reached its most forward position and has begun to retract:



The arm is nearly the length of the robot and pivots on the front frame rail. It's driven by 2 mini-CIMs through a toughbox mini and #25 chain with an overall ratio of 28:1. We have an incremental encoder on the gearbox so we know how far its traveled is each 20mS control loop.

I don't remember the exact weight of the catapult arm but it is extremely light. The arm itself is 1.25" square, 0.040" wall thickness 7075 tubing that came out of a sponsor's dumpster. The "dish" the boulder rests in is carbon fiber. The block of pink foam on the arm was added after week 3 and reduced the boulder settling time substantially.

[Kevin Leonard]

I've been thinking about this thread again, and I decided to analyze IRI this time as a sampling of the best teams in the world ought to produce the best shooters as well, right?

IRI had:

• 26 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 21 Catapults
• 11 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 9 Robots without a high goal shooter
• And 1619's shooter, which I'm not quite sure how to classify, but it used a lot of wheels. If someone from 1619 would comment, that would be cool.

Of those teams, in eliminations were 32 teams as follows:

• 14 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 7 Catapults
• 4 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 3 Robots with no high goal shooting
• 1619

There are a few ways to analyze this data, so I've put it into a little table. The first one is the number of teams with that type of shooter compared to the total number of teams at IRI. The second is the number in eliminations with that type of shooter compared to the number of teams at IRI with that shooter, and the third is the number of teams in eliminations with that type of shooter relative to the total number of teams in eliminations.


This data could mean absolutely nothing, and the shooters at IRI could be happenstance and good teams just happened to draw their inspiration from 2012 robots or something. Or maybe not.

I think the most interesting numbers are the comparison between the first row and the third row. Despite being the largest group of robots at IRI, single flywheel machines were over-represented in eliminations, while the next three largest blocks(Catapult, Double Flywheel, None) were all underrepresented in eliminations. The middle row also represents that, with more than 50% of all single flywheel teams at IRI making eliminations.

Knowing this information (and also my experience in the past with some very finnicky double flywheel shooters and catapults), I would use a single flywheel shooter in a similarly styled shooting game in the future (although God knows I'm going to eat these words when I want to pursue some other shooter a few years from now and my students do some research and find this post).

[andrewthomas]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I've been thinking about this thread again, and I decided to analyze IRI this time as a sampling of the best teams in the world ought to produce the best shooters as well, right?

IRI had:

• 26 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 21 Catapults
• 11 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 9 Robots without a high goal shooter
• And 1619's shooter, which I'm not quite sure how to classify, but it used a lot of wheels. If someone from 1619 would comment, that would be cool.

Of those teams, in eliminations were 32 teams as follows:

• 14 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 7 Catapults
• 4 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 3 Robots with no high goal shooting
• 1619

There are a few ways to analyze this data, so I've put it into a little table. The first one is the number of teams with that type of shooter compared to the total number of teams at IRI. The second is the number in eliminations with that type of shooter compared to the number of teams at IRI with that shooter, and the third is the number of teams in eliminations with that type of shooter relative to the total number of teams in eliminations.


This data could mean absolutely nothing, and the shooters at IRI could be happenstance and good teams just happened to draw their inspiration from 2012 robots or something. Or maybe not.

I think the most interesting numbers are the comparison between the first row and the third row. Despite being the largest group of robots at IRI, single flywheel machines were over-represented in eliminations, while the next three largest blocks(Catapult, Double Flywheel, None) were all underrepresented in eliminations. The middle row also represents that, with more than 50% of all single flywheel teams at IRI making eliminations.

Knowing this information (and also my experience in the past with some very finnicky double flywheel shooters and catapults), I would use a single flywheel shooter in a similarly styled shooting game in the future (although God knows I'm going to eat these words when I want to pursue some other shooter a few years from now and my students do some research and find this post).

Very cool data you have here! I'm happy to see that 100% of teams with a 1619 style shooter made it to elims, haha. Anyways, on to our shooter design.



Basically, two horizontal rows, each with four four inch colsons, opposite from quarter inch polycarb, with about 2 inches of compression.

Personally, I most enjoyed watching (and listening to) the linear puncher shooters. However, different shooters entail different constraints and/or requirements, and can all yield great results when well optimized.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I've been thinking about this thread again, and I decided to analyze IRI this time as a sampling of the best teams in the world ought to produce the best shooters as well, right?

IRI had:

• 26 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 21 Catapults
• 11 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 9 Robots without a high goal shooter
• And 1619's shooter, which I'm not quite sure how to classify, but it used a lot of wheels. If someone from 1619 would comment, that would be cool.

Of those teams, in eliminations were 32 teams as follows:

• 14 Single Flywheel Shooters
• 7 Catapults
• 4 Double Flywheel Shooters
• 2 Linear Punches
• 3 Robots with no high goal shooting
• 1619

*snip*

Really interesting writeup. Could you post the lists of which teams use which shooting mechanisms? I'd like to take it one step further and see how far the various mechanisms made it in elims.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

Really interesting writeup. Could you post the lists of which teams use which shooting mechanisms? I'd like to take it one step further and see how far the various mechanisms made it in elims.

Well lets take a look

Winning Alliance
2056 - Single Flywheel
118 - Catapult
33 - Single Flywheel
4587 - Catapult

Finalist Alliance
1114 - Single Flywheel
195 - Catapult
225 - Dual Wheel
1405 - Defender

Semi Finalist 1
1619 - 1619 Style
1241 - Single Flywheel
133 - Catapult
868 - Single Flywheel

Semi Finalist 2
3620 - Single Flywheel
67 - Single Flywheel
3683- Low Goal
5254 - Dual Wheel

Quarterfinalists 1
2771 - Single Flywheel
16 - Single Flywheel
1024 - Catapult
1023 - Single Flywheel

Quarterfinalists 2
217 - Single Flywheel
2451 - Catapult
494 - Single Flywheel
3641 - Dual Wheel

Quarterfinalists 3
2481 - Single Flywheel
330 - Linear Punch
3824 - Dual Wheel
1640 - Catapult

Quarterfinalists 4
45 - Catapult
179 - Single Flywheel
1806 - Linear Punch
233 - Low Goal

I am probably wrong somewhere in this list so if you see something wrong just PM me and Ill edit it.

[Tom Line]

Analyzing how many of each type of shooter there was is similar to counting how many presidential candidates have blue eyes. The quantities of each might represent what teams initially perceived would serve them the best, but that decision making process was full of other variables like packaging, previous experience, and fabrication difficulty.

If you want to determine which was superior, then you need to determine what metrics you believe are important to the shooter and measure them.

% shots made would be a decent start.

[Ben Martin]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

% shots made would be a decent start.

Here is data on this subject from our qual match scouting at IRI. The usual noise of scouting data applies.

[ollien]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

Here is data on this subject from our qual match scouting at IRI. The usual noise of scouting data applies.

Any reason why 1619 has their own group?

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by ollien

Any reason why 1619 has their own group?

Because even after a member of 1619 posted a picture and explained their shooter, it is unique enough that it doesn't quite fit in any of the other groups. It could probably be grouped with the double flywheel shooters, but it's enough of an outlier to earn its own category.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Because even after a member of 1619 posted a picture and explained their shooter, it is unique enough that it doesn't quite fit in any of the other groups. It could probably be grouped with the double flywheel shooters, but it's enough of an outlier to earn its own category.

We had the same shooter design (more or less).

I'd classify it closer to a single wheeled rotary shooter than a double flywheel shooter.

It's using flywheel(s) on one side to roll ball against a stationary wall and has a good deal of travel on the ball. A double wheeled shooter reacts off both wheels at once and doesn't have as much travel time on the ball.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

We had the same shooter design (more or less).

I'd classify it closer to a single wheeled rotary shooter than a double flywheel shooter.

It's using flywheel(s) on one side to roll ball against a stationary wall and has a good deal of travel on the ball. A double wheeled shooter reacts off both wheels at once and doesn't have as much travel time on the ball.

Well that shows how unique it is (or how dirty my glasses are). I thought it was the blue wheels on the two vertical shafts that provided the power, not the horizontal rows of Colsons. I guess those are for intake then.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Analyzing how many of each type of shooter there was is similar to counting how many presidential candidates have blue eyes. The quantities of each might represent what teams initially perceived would serve them the best, but that decision making process was full of other variables like packaging, previous experience, and fabrication difficulty.

If you want to determine which was superior, then you need to determine what metrics you believe are important to the shooter and measure them.

% shots made would be a decent start.

Very true, but I think it's a good start, and it's an easy analysis to do.

[aJASONt_angles]

Best Shooting mechanism of 2016: Robonauts Grappling Hook

'Nuff Said