ball "fuel" hopper sorter

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I really think the best way to do this is to not have to sort your hopper into a single feed. In 2009, the last volume scoring game, lots of teams trapped themselves into this paradigm early on and found their scoring potential harshly limited.

Do you mind providing an example or two of teams that did NOT have to sort their hopper into a single feed and were successful? I'm just not quite sure if I understand your point entirely.

[pilum40]

We are using the same concept as a paintball power hopper. Using a small motor with a rotor mechanism to keep pushing the balls around. It works great in my paintball hopper, we'll see if it works for this project. We're prototyping this with a small motor turning a lightweight rotor (3D Printed). Who knows. I really am hoping my team doesn't go obsessive/compulsive about this part of the game. I'd much rather spend time placing gears and hanging than wasting a load of time working on a shooter that shoots a ton load of balls for mediocre scores. Thank goodness the chassis, electricals, and gear delivery system is finished.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Do you mind providing an example or two of teams that did NOT have to sort their hopper into a single feed and were successful? I'm just not quite sure if I understand your point entirely.

67, 971, and 111 are solid examples to start with.

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Do you mind providing an example or two of teams that did NOT have to sort their hopper into a single feed and were successful? I'm just not quite sure if I understand your point entirely.

unfortunately there is little match video, but our (1318) design in 2009 was 2.5 (ish) balls wide from intake to outflow. We won a regional and seeded #2 on Galileo.

I think his point was that once you commit to a singe stream shooter, you commit to a bottleneck mechanism, and if you skip the single width shooter, you may never need a bottleneck.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Do you mind providing an example or two of teams that did NOT have to sort their hopper into a single feed and were successful? I'm just not quite sure if I understand your point entirely.

Part of the challenge is that most of these robots converted themselves into short-range dumpers before too long, since it was very easy for this style of robot to do that.

67 was a two ball wide shooter, but balls that came up in the middle shot just fine.

228 was not the greatest robot, but I'm very familiar with that example - a 3 inch diameter drum across the entire width shooter with a lexan hood allowed for those kind of shots.

Dumpers that had more of an active "shot" out rather than a slower puke could be argued to be this kind of shooter - 47's rebuild, 254 / 968, etc. come to mind.

100's shooter is pretty much perfect for this, but their hopper did divide into two single file channels (I'm not sure that was necessary, but that's how it was).

The key design details tend to be the use of a roller of uniform diameter rather than spaced wheels, and the use of a curved backboard made from a single piece of plastic rather than separate "rails" used on some hooded shooters.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I don't have any useful answer or suggestion here, other than I've just decided my personal term for this robot system is now "fuel injector".

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Compare the relative size of the goal and the game pieces in 2009 and 2017. It's much closer than you think!

Absolutely this!

[Lord Basket]

Impellers like those used in paintball guns are absolutely a good idea to prototype, but don't come in with the assumption that because it's the most effective loader for paintball, it must also be the most effective loader for robots this year. A big difference between paintball hoppers and robots this year is the size of the balls relative to the container.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Part of the challenge is that most of these robots converted themselves into short-range dumpers before too long, since it was very easy for this style of robot to do that.

67 was a two ball wide shooter, but balls that came up in the middle shot just fine.

228 was not the greatest robot, but I'm very familiar with that example - a 3 inch diameter drum across the entire width shooter with a lexan hood allowed for those kind of shots.

Dumpers that had more of an active "shot" out rather than a slower puke could be argued to be this kind of shooter - 47's rebuild, 254 / 968, etc. come to mind.

100's shooter is pretty much perfect for this, but their hopper did divide into two single file channels (I'm not sure that was necessary, but that's how it was).

The key design details tend to be the use of a roller of uniform diameter rather than spaced wheels, and the use of a curved backboard made from a single piece of plastic rather than separate "rails" used on some hooded shooters.

If I recall correctly, the shift from shooters to a different archetype was known as vomit mode in some places of the internet. Just wanted to give newer people a different search term.

On second thought, use that term very wisely...

[tiernan12992]

Our team has a relatively flat base on the bottom, but it is lifted at such an angle that the balls naturally roll into position for our shooter to collect them and fire them. Angles can be your best friend sometimes. And so can simplicity.

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by tiernan12992

Our team has a relatively flat base on the bottom, but it is lifted at such an angle that the balls naturally roll into position for our shooter to collect them and fire them. Angles can be your best friend sometimes. And so can simplicity.

Be careful about relying on gravity. Gravity-fed hoppers tend to jam and there's nothing you can do about it.