pic: First Fully Functioning 1024 2008 Machine - Isometric View

[Qbranch]

You are correct! The ball is grabbed, picked up, released (the ball rests pretty securely between the top two pipe pieces, the hockey puck (whose curve matches that of the ball) and the open arms keep it from rolling away), then six 3/4" bore 10" stroke pistons hurdle the ball. Seperate solenoids are used to shoot and retract the pistons, to allow the topsides of the pistons to be vented before the bottom side tries to push (no effort wasted pushing pressurized air out of the way).

After the ball goes out of contact with the pistons, it travels up another two and a half feet due to its momentum for a total hurdle height of about three feet. The ball starts out being about four feet off the ground, so the bottom of the ball goes to about 7 feet 4 inches off the ground to clear the overpass.

Hopefully I'll be posting video footage later this week of the robot hurlding as well as running in autonomous.

-q

**EDIT** Forgot to mention the super awesome special feature. The super awesome special feature is a homebrew nine inch tall by 27" long four character segmented LED display, 3,000mcd red LEDs. It may be shortened to three characters as finding mounting locations while still being able to list sponsors has been... eh... how shall I say... problematic. At any rate, photos (maybe video) of that running to come as well. (As it sits now, it functions, but is a big PCboard with lots of wires hanging out all over. Figuring how to ruggedize it now.)