Rapid fuel feeding into shooter

[Brandon_L]

It seems we're all aiming for speed on our shooters, trying to max out balls per second, but I haven't seen a thread yet on how to feed these shooters at a matching rate. Just thought I'd open a discussion, as I think this has the possibility of being the most overlooked component this season. (This is sort of a compliment thread to Realistic high goal scoring rate)

We've seen the blender method used in some robot in 3 days videos, and it does work but it takes too much time to get the balls to the shooter in my opinion.

I'm a fan of the Zou Keeper single file line fed into the shooter, but this presents obvious space usage issues (limiting how many balls you can hold) and human loading issues

Perhaps some combination could work - A blender that lines the balls into a single file chute as you drive across the field so you have a stock of balls ready to go at the boiler, but you could only have so many balls ready to go and you're stuck again with the feed rate of the blender.

TL;DR How is everyone planning to get their fuel from a jumbled mess to the shooter in a timely fashion?

[s_forbes]

You call that a blender? THIS is a blender!

[caleby]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BndIuKTXsI

[JohnFogarty]

Those wheel agitators are nuts hahaaa

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

You call that a blender? THIS is a blender!

Wow! All those videos look seriously impressive. I do find it interesting that you were able to shoot so many shots in such a short span of time that they knocked each other out of the way as they slowed at the apex of the arc. Do you mind sharing some of the specs on motor, gearing, and wheel?

In regards to other methods of feeding Fuel, an auger similar to those in Icee machines might be an excellent solution. I've seen several people try homemade versions of an Archimedes screw, but I think that the solid shaft and the rather uniform (albeit spiral) travel of the Fuel in the hopper makes for a more difficult integration than the combination of agitation and propulsion the augers offer.

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Do you mind sharing some of the specs on motor, gearing, and wheel?

The shooter wheel is a 6" AM wheel, geared down roughly 4:1 from a CIM (It goes way too slow, but that was the quick easy way to build it at the time). The backing material for the shooter is a slightly flexible corrugated composite hi-tech material (cardboard). The recycling can is just a recycling can with a hole in it. Stick some shelf liner on the end of a drill (high speed preferable) and watch the balls fly out!

[Chris is me]

What's wrong with the ol' flat polycord elevator we all know and love? Are you specifically looking for "many-to-one" solutions?

The fastest accurate high capacity shooter I can remember is 217's 2009 robot, still one of my all time favorites. Not saying a powered helix is the right call for this game, but it's a hell of a mechanism.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

The shooter wheel is a 6" AM wheel, geared down roughly 4:1 from a CIM (It goes way too slow, but that was the quick easy way to build it at the time). The backing material for the shooter is a slightly flexible corrugated composite hi-tech material (cardboard). The recycling can is just a recycling can with a hole in it. Stick some shelf liner on the end of a drill (high speed preferable) and watch the balls fly out!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Chris is me

What's wrong with the ol' flat polycord elevator we all know and love? Are you specifically looking for "many-to-one" solutions?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by using a polycord elevator for getting Fuel out of a large hopper and into the shooter mechanism. Granted, I wasn't around in 2009 or 2012, so I've only seen polycord as a popular intake component for Stronghold.

[Lil' Lavery]

If you don't rob momentum from the fuel, gravity can feed them at a pretty quick rate.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

I'm not quite sure what you mean by using a polycord elevator for getting Fuel out of a large hopper and into the shooter mechanism. Granted, I wasn't around in 2009 or 2012, so I've only seen polycord as a popular intake component for Stronghold.

254 is a good example of this. There were a lot of successful robots in 2009 that had a general design of something like "Wide intake, large hopper, polycord elevator, fast shooter."

[Lil' Lavery]

When it comes to quick feed conveyors, 469 is 2006 is what I think of.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Are you specifically looking for "many-to-one" solutions?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

If you don't rob momentum from the fuel, gravity can feed them at a pretty quick rate.

Gravity is pretty great if they're already single file, which is the issue I'm bringing up. Otherwise my guess is it would jam. I guess I should be more specific:

You could do a helix at the cost of volume, and have the balls single file and easily feed into a shooter. Alternatively, if you just have a bucket o' balls, whats the fastest way to get them single file into the shooter?

Originally Posted by s_forbes

You call that a blender? THIS is a blender!

This has potential

[Billfred]

5402 is a disciple of the Stephen Kowski School of How To Play Lunacy. No unnecessary choke points (though we will add a little width into the central storage area for extra capacity), sort 'em out early, flow through and get 'em out.

Our game strategy is distilling to "deliver a gear, and get what you're going to get at the boiler quickly". This is probably not the game that is going to win Einstein, but we're rebuilding from missing state last year and we think this will get us back on track. (And look cool as all hell in the process.)

[Tio]

what fabric are you using?

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Tio

what fabric are you using?

If you are asking about the prototype videos that we posted, we are using a sticky shelf lining material from Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Duck-12-x...Liner/16486841 It has good grip on the balls, but if you use it like we did in those blender prototypes it wears out extremely quickly. Once it wears out it doesn't kick the balls out of the bin nearly as fast.