2495's Kicker

[Brandon_L]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Dad...safe_search=on

any comments? What do you guys think?

[The Reaver]

That is INSANE. How are you planning on controlling the ball speed, though?

[mikelowry]

Does it have to be spun up to speed when the ball hits it to get full distance? Or can you possess a ball and shoot it at will?

[Darth Pbal]

Great kicker. My only concern would be how to incorporate that onto the robot and still not have any problems. You should use that but have a something to control how fast it spins. That way, if you're close to the goal, you spin slower so it doesn't like fly out of the arena and get you guys in trouble.

[Brandon_L]

Its run off a drive motor so its 100% controllable. We found that .6 of the 1.0 gives us the most distance (Programmer talk...), any higher makes the ball just go up. About .3 is enough to kick it short into the goal. It does have to be spun up to speed which is why we'll probably end up "dribbling" the ball (kicking it a short distance, following it, and kicking again). The power is for the autonomous we plan on trying to start at the far end and use omni wheels to kick all 3 balls to the other side.

[infocus]

We prototyped a hand powered version of this and really liked the idea, but we thought it would be hard to utilize without violating <G30>. How are you guys approaching this?

[Brandon_L]

it would't extend out, the ball would go in. From what I understand, the ball can travel inside the robot a maximum distance of 3".

[Bill_B]

So the kicker wouldn't extend beyond the frame perimeter?

[infocus]

How do you plan on the ball not hitting your bumper? If your kicking it from 3 inches in, you've got 6 inches of material to avoid. Your kick seemed like it had a very high angle to begin with.