Shooter vs Dumper Trade Study

[Team2339]

Jeff's hint about shotguns is our strategy. we are dumping, hopefully with two rates, one close, the other 5 to 8 feet, or over one robot to a basket or the station. It is simple and something we can finish in 6 weeks. The scoring would be a % of balls shot, then pick um up and shoot again

[Swampdude]

If you're planning to take a big basket of balls and sling them all at once in a given direction, I hope you're considering the equally opposite force applied to your bot while its sitting on a slippery floor at the point of release.

[drueb12]

As a rookie team would it be smarter to dump rather than to shoot ? Especially if u are 2weeks into the competition and not started building.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by drueb12

Aa a rookie team would a rookie team would it be smarter to dump rather than to shoot ? Especially if u are 2weeks into the competition and not started building.

At this point, KISS wins. Dumper would be the way to go; you'll need to get enough speed on the balls to send them about 1-2 feet before they go below trailer level. Whether or not you do floor pickup, also allow for a floor release to feed the Payload Specialists.

[waialua359]

Whether shooter or dumper, a camera-tracking turret (or equivalent) is a MUST considering that no robot and/or target will be stationary for a long period of time. Drivers that have to "aim" will be too late when their robot has to do what they are thinking at that given moment in time.

Strategies that make the HP as the greatest offensive threat for an alliance seems interesting. I wonder if this will be the first time that a HP on an alliance will be a reliable force to reckon with??

[hillale]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

If you're planning to take a big basket of balls and sling them all at once in a given direction, I hope you're considering the equally opposite force applied to your bot while its sitting on a slippery floor at the point of release.

Why not employ that wonderful friend of everyone's? Gravity! Obey it, it's the law.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by hillale

Why not employ that wonderful friend of everyone's? Gravity! Obey it, it's the law.

We have found that another common friend (and typical foe when it comes to collecting balls) Friction rears its head and causes these nice elastic orbit balls to seize up and resist that oh-so-appealing 9.8 m/s^2.

[hillale]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

We have found that another common friend (and typical foe when it comes to collecting balls) Friction rears its head and causes these nice elastic orbit balls to seize up and resist that oh-so-appealing 9.8 m/s^2.

Come on, you've got plenty of room above, let's say the middle length poles on the trailer, to create a large enough pitch in the floor of a hopper for balls to overcome their inertia and friction. A trap door maybe with a fairly large area maybe including part of the front of your robot?

[Goldeye]

Originally Posted by Bongle

If your shooter has a moderate speed (8ft/s), then a robot just 10ft away could accelerate hard enough to be 1.5ft away from where you expected it to be (if you assume constant velocity). If you add in the inevitable imprecision of an orbit-ball shooter, the amount of balls you'd get in would be low.

A powered dumper seems to be the way to go.

By similar arguments, a moving robot further than 1-2 feet away will, at the least, be a challenge to reach and dump into, particularly for long enough to dump all the stored orbit balls. I don't know the radius of the goal offhand. Isn't the radius about 1.5ft? If the error due to acceleration is just that, then the only real concern is the precision of a shooter. I can't comment on that

Also, 10 feet really isn't that close. Robots can easily get within 5 feet of eachother, I just envision trouble getting closer (and staying there)

There's no right answer, and teams will get both ways working, but I feel confident saying this just from the nature of this year's driving: if you can build a device that aims independently of your robot and propels the balls (at least slightly), you will have a much easier time getting balls in the goal. There are still other tradeoffs, of course.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by hillale

Come on, you've got plenty of room above, let's say the middle length poles on the trailer, to create a large enough pitch in the floor of a hopper for balls to overcome their inertia and friction. A trap door maybe with a fairly large area maybe including part of the front of your robot?

Exactly. We've already proven to ourselves that you don't need one of those fancy spiral/loop systems to efficiently get the balls to feed. You can spin the hopper and pulll balls out ala the killer bees giant gumball machine in '06. You can put a screw in ala a washing machine center post (vertical style, not front load). You can have an agitator/swing arm device. Most all of these will fit above the 34 inches, or a short conveyor belt will let you go all the way down to the robot base with your storage.

[swamp_child]

So now that we've seen footage of a ton of bots and we've seen some practice matches in the form of scrimmages, what mechanism do you guys think will come out on top?

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by swamp_child

So now that we've seen footage of a ton of bots and we've seen some practice matches in the form of scrimmages, what mechanism do you guys think will come out on top?

I've seen that amazing shooters and dumpers are both amazing at scoring on a stationary goal, or in a 1v1 environment.

Some of these teams may have done 3v3 practices and know the answer, but publicly no one has any idea of what will truly come out on top.

[rees2001]

I hope the strategy is a Dunker!

[jamie_1930]

I find that a shooter can easly work as a dumper as well by turning down the firing speed and increasing the loading speed so I would always prefer a shooter over a dumper. Also from seeing tuesday's matches dumpers can be ineffective if the trailer is not properley pinned.

[artdutra04]

It doesn't matter if you went with a shooter or a dumper. There will be successful teams from each camp.

The only thing that matters is having a better strategy than your opponent, by using your robots' strengths and zeroing in on your opponents' weaknesses.