Are any teams planning on shooting the ball?

[Furrah!!]

our team has decided to go with a "flinging plank" powered by surgical tubing. Our test have it flinging the ball around 8-10 feet in the air. We plan on using the momentum of the robot moving forward to create out trajectory. This launcher can also place the ball for end game consistently.

[Asiatique296]

Oui. L'équipe 296 de Montreal est entrain de fabriquer une catapulte pour lancer la balle par dessus la barre. On a deja lancé 9 pieds dans l'air plusieurs fois.
Les photos seront disponibles plus tard, car notre catapulte est top secret.




(Sorry about the french but i had to prove my Quebecness to my teammates. I know, its a horrible excuse, but it all makes sense to me.)

[Qbranch]

Originally Posted by sumadin

I'd be interested in seeing those equations. Math is always fun, especially when it's useful.

Ok, here's the (now well worn) piece of notebook paper that I did it on it Economics. Let's face it, the opportunity costs of doing it were very friendly since everyone can use a review of their calculus.

I'm sorry it's kind of hard to read in places, as i mentioned before it's not in the best shape anymore (has a few holes in it from folding/unfolding while we were designing our shooter). But, these equations have been empirically validated as accurate, so here you are. I know it got cut off but the top says "g should be put in negative" but you can see that in the test case down below anyhow.

Thankfully, the two really really important equations are clear and pretty easy to read Lymax is the Y location at which the trajectory peaks. Lx@ymax is the X location (how far down range) at which this Y peak (maximum height) occurs. The "test case" in the bottom 1/3 of the page shows an example using these equations.

If you have questions, please post. I realize it's hard to read, but it's also thankfully pretty high resolution, so just zoom in.

Click here to see the page (768k, png)

-q