pic: 2006 HOTBOT

[Pat McCarthy]

Ok, here comes the explanations.

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

Question and request, how does your shooter work and it would be nice to have a video of the hotbot.

The shooter has two wheels that launch the ball up the arch and out of the robot. The arch puts a nice backspin on the ball increasing it's distance a little bit.

Originally Posted by Greg Perkins

Here's my guess,

The shooters wheels shoot the ball initially faster than the 12m/s... however due to gravity and whatnot that the intertial force of the ball coming out of the cannon keeps it against the chute. And as it slowly stats to lose momentum after breaching the top of the chute, it slows down to the maximum speed alotted by FIRST. This is the only way it works, that I can see anyway. I assume your just lobbing them from the ramp?

You are quite correct about the shooter's speed.
We can shoot from at least half court into the center goal. (we haven't measued the exit velocity yet, so that could change in either direction)

Originally Posted by DjAlamose

But the netting baffles me, does it close or opens up?

In the picture, the netting is almost all the way in the closed position. It opens forward to increase the target area for the human player and to increase hopper capacity.