Shooter vs Dumper Trade Study

[RMS11]

At peachtree, shooters stole the show with the first, second, and third seed teams had shooters, and the 8th seeded alliance had 2 shooters, although all these teams mainly shot from close range. There were also some dumpers, but in the end the most successful teams were able to turret and have control of the balls used at once, so it did not end up being all or nothing.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by CSideris28

The best robots that I have seen this year are able to bump into a trailer, and during that seemingly instantaneous period of contact, are able to unload anywhere between 5 - 15 balls. Teams like 20, 111, 121, 175, 254, 1625, as well as many others fit this description. Although teams like 40, 217, and 1114 have had success with turreted shooters, they are in a very small minority. I don't think that anyone will disagree with me when i say that a higher percentage of power dumpers than shooters have been effective, and that fact is what makes me favor power dumpers in general.

This is so biased but there's no way you can talk about shooters and leave out 188 and 1771. They are another 2 that are great shooters.

[Chris is me]

I don't think there needs to be a distinction made between "shooter" and "dumper" as much as one needs to be able to track how many balls make it into the trailer and how many seconds it takes to dump said balls. I've seen a number of shooters that unload as fast as many dumpers, and lumping them into categories like that doesn't really give the full story.

An advantage to a "shooter" (especially turreted models) that's been underutilized is the defensive capabilites retained while unloading. A shooter is free to pin one robot against a wall while firing against another (this was roughly what my team was going to do against 1625, but other problems arose). There's also a great advantage in a tracking shooter being able to move and hit at the same time, as the key to the game is really "don't get hit".

All in all, it comes down to the bottom line: In (arbitrary amount of seconds), the number of balls that are in the trailer is all that matters, regardless of design.

[Tom I]

I'll throw this one out for public scruitiny...
My team (811, the Cardinals) decided early on that throwers would probably have the advantage in this years game. We thought the functionality of a shooter would benifit us in competition. When we got to the GSR, we found that reality was a different situation. Our shooting performance was no where near as good as we hoped, and we all too commonly unloaded a hopper full of balls into the space where a trailer had occupied moments before. We reassessed the situtation, and actually made a slight change in our design... we added a lexan deflector just past our shooter, which knocked the balls comming out of our shooter downward. This way, we got the full speed and power of our shooter, but aimed down to dumping. With this adjustment, we became a much better scoring team, and we were pleased with the results. In this game, shooting was a very difficult task. If accomplished it was invaluable, but it was very difficult for most teams.

[artdutra04]

After reading through this thread again, there certainly is a large amount of confirmation bias here. Not every where, not every post, but there's a lot of it.

Always challenge your own ideas. It's the only way to avoid confirmation bias (and most conspiracy "theories").

[jamie_1930]

I will always prefer a shooter over a dumper.

[Oblarg]

Keep in mind, shooters don't always have to be shooting for trailers.

[kc2pix]

Our team has a powered dumper. It has a tray with a slanted bottom, (like paint roller tray shaped) and the back wall moves forward to launch the balls forward. We can launch several balls at a time, into a trailer that we don't need to be directly up against. The balls come up through a trap door in the front of the tray. The only problem we had was that balls kept falling over the edge.

We were very proud of our design.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by kc2pix

Our team has a powered dumper. It has a tray with a slanted bottom, (like paint roller tray shaped) and the back wall moves forward to launch the balls forward. We can launch several balls at a time, into a trailer that we don't need to be directly up against. The balls come up through a trap door in the front of the tray. The only problem we had was that balls kept falling over the edge.

We were very proud of our design.

The purpose of this thread is to decide which is better, although IMO there is not one better design. So along these lines how many balls can your system make per dump and how accurate is it. A lot of dumpers that tilt that I have seen, miss a vast majority of balls which makes there high capacity pretty worthless. I am also not a fan of relying on gravity to move things quickly.

[swamp_child]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

The purpose of this thread is to decide which is better, although IMO there is not one better design. So along these lines how many balls can your system make per dump and how accurate is it. A lot of dumpers that tilt that I have seen, miss a vast majority of balls which makes there high capacity pretty worthless. I am also not a fan of relying on gravity to move things quickly.

based on what I saw at Fl, we averaged more balls per match than almost any other team. That being said i think the best mechanism is a power dumper like 1625 or 1649 or a ? shape like 190 or 79

[sdcantrell56]

I know at peachtree we averaged the most balls per match, and we were a turreted short range shooter. We are capable of 4-6 balls/second though so we're not exactly a slow shooter. We really used our robot like an aimable dumper the whole time since we never got the tracking to work with the lighting. It also helped that we had fans to chase down anyone. I know based off of some preliminary statistics, we have one of the highest average match scores in the country (82).

[Aren_Hill]

May i inquire as to what your average balls per match was? (1771)

[sdcantrell56]

Im not quite sure Aren. I believe average was probably between 15 and 25 for the robot plus 10 for the human player.

The point average was 82

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Tom I

We reassessed the situtation, and actually made a slight change in our design... we added a lexan deflector just past our shooter, which knocked the balls comming out of our shooter downward. This way, we got the full speed and power of our shooter, but aimed down to dumping.

heh...that sounds familiar

[Alex Cormier]

I have been thinking a lot lately...

With a few regionals under the books, and teams not as effective as they thought they would be. I am startign to hear a trend of teams switching from a shooter to a dumper. Have you seen or hear of this happening? I would like to see some more before and after pictures (like 1024, 103).