pic: Toltech '05 bot throws first pitch

[Andrew Schuetze]

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[bigbeezy]

Wow thats pretty sweet. We are thinking about making a t-shirt cannon this summer. Do you have any specs on how you made yours?

[Andrew Schuetze]

You'll have to wait a few days before we can post up a schematic for how to operate a spike on the VEX controller but the Victors work no problem. The wiring is very rough at this point as we had just three days to rewire this using the VEX controller before we took it out for the ball game. You can get the details on the quick acting pneumatic valve on this thread. I also seriously suggest that anyone building such a device use pnuematic pressure rated steel pipe for your storage tank. We used black pipe from the hardware store use for natural gas lines for residential use.

Spikes have two (2) signal wires and one ground. The operating voltage comes from the positive terminal on the spike. The VEX controller has standard PWM outputs with ground/+5/signal so we made custom PWM cables that split the second signal (red wire) to a second PWM pin on the controller.

We are also awaiting a part to solder up a voltage regulator to take the 12 VDC from the FRC battery down to 8 VDC for the VEX system per the advice and posting by Squirrel.

[Tazlikesrobots]

So did the baseball team offer the robot a contract? It would make a great pitcher

- Just kidding

[Andrew Schuetze]

Hadn't thought of that but it might be a good fundraiser for the team.

[Ternz]

That is awesome. Did you get a MPH reading for the ball?