Creating the perfect robot

[GarrettF2395]

Originally Posted by chmorroni

Just a thought, but I know our robot (a more-or-less FCS) and a few others that I saw had to let their shooter wheels speed back up after each shot. What if it had a system of 2 shooters, so it could go through all the alliance's white Frisbees much more quickly? Then you have more time to do each of the other things on the list.

This is exactly what I was thinking!

It sounds crazy but what if you had an elevating top shooter similar to 1477, and a semi-stationary bottom shooter (it would only adjust its shooting angle)?
That way's it would be possible to fire all of your alliance discs very quickly, then if you had a 30 point climb or a floor intake, you would have enough time to make good use of those design aspects.

You could elevate your top shooter to score the alliance discs into the pyramid goal for the full 30 points if you had enough time for 2 trips.

Now, lets say that you're a wizard of compacting your designs.
When your top shooter is in its stored position, you can fit under the pyramid, and your bottom shooter can receive discs from your intake system (again similar to 1477).

So now all we are missing is the 30 point climb.
Suppose you made the elevator system strong enough and tall enough to act as a lifting arm for a 30 point climber similar to the 1986 or 254 style of climbing.
You now have every aspect of of the game covered with one robot AND enough time created by the double shooter to do those aspects.

Obviously this is a ridiculous idea, but it is certainly fun to think about!

[Rynocorn]

Just stick the top half of 148 or 1806 onto the bottom half of 1310!!
That should work great right?

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by GarrettF2395

This is exactly what I was thinking!

It sounds crazy but what if you had an elevating top shooter similar to 1477, and a semi-stationary bottom shooter (it would only adjust its shooting angle)?
That way's it would be possible to fire all of your alliance discs very quickly, then if you had a 30 point climb or a floor intake, you would have enough time to make good use of those design aspects.

You could elevate your top shooter to score the alliance discs into the pyramid goal for the full 30 points if you had enough time for 2 trips.

Now, lets say that you're a wizard of compacting your designs.
When your top shooter is in its stored position, you can fit under the pyramid, and your bottom shooter can receive discs from your intake system (again similar to 1477).

So now all we are missing is the 30 point climb.
Suppose you made the elevator system strong enough and tall enough to act as a lifting arm for a 30 point climber similar to the 1986 or 254 style of climbing.
You now have every aspect of of the game covered with one robot AND enough time created by the double shooter to do those aspects.

Obviously this is a ridiculous idea, but it is certainly fun to think about!

But if you have 67's shooter, 195's shooter, or 2169's shooter, you have awesome accuracy AND zero-spin-up time.
I don't know if 67 and 2169 used code to keep the speed of their shooter or some other method. I DO know that 195 used an exorbitantly large wheel so that after every shot, the weight of the wheel would keep it spinning quickly.

[Lil' Lavery]

9 disc auton + the worlds best drivers + incredible amounts of traction + retractable blocker

[bkahl]

195 actually explored the idea of an elevating shooter during brainstorming at the beginning of the season and again before IRI. There were possible designs made, but we decided that we wanted to keep our robot the way it was, simple.

[chmorroni]

Originally Posted by Thunder910

But if you have 67's shooter, 195's shooter, or 2169's shooter, you have awesome accuracy AND zero-spin-up time.
I don't know if 67 and 2169 used code to keep the speed of their shooter or some other method. I DO know that 195 used an exorbitantly large wheel so that after every shot, the weight of the wheel would keep it spinning quickly.

Our shooter was a 180 degree circular shooter with an 8" pneumatic wheel direct mounted to a CIM. It takes at least .5-1 seconds to speed back up after pushing a Frisbee through it. I think one way to avoid that might be to decrease the contact time of the Frisbee with the wheel.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by chmorroni

Our shooter was a 180 degree circular shooter with an 8" pneumatic wheel direct mounted to a CIM. It takes at least .5-1 seconds to speed back up after pushing a Frisbee through it. I think one way to avoid that might be to decrease the contact time of the Frisbee with the wheel.

I don't think that how much energy you need to push the frisbee through really matters. You can almost always just add more power to get a faster recovery time. We had a similar setup to yours: an 8" Colson on a ~120 degree path. We started out with a CIM but then went to dual fisher prices to get it back up to speed faster.

I think it would be possible to get the throughput of this sort of shooter up above what a single human player can load without too much extra trouble. I think the ultimate FCS would need to take disks from multiple human-loading slots more than it would need a second shooter.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Thunder910

I don't know if 67 and 2169 used code to keep the speed of their shooter or some other method.

2169 had a hall effect sensor to keep track of their RPM and how quickly they could feed, in addition to having plenty of power and I believe a heavy wheel (the only thing that is definitely correct about that is the hall effect sensor).

The other thing about 2169's shooter is that it's angled so they could sit directly against the feeder station and still shoot "straight." If I remember correctly this affected where they could sit in autonomous and they had to be angled (which may or may not be an issue if you're repurposing it for pickup).

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0

I don't think that how much energy you need to push the frisbee through really matters. You can almost always just add more power to get a faster recovery time. We had a similar setup to yours: an 8" Colson on a ~120 degree path. We started out with a CIM but then went to dual fisher prices to get it back up to speed faster.

??
FP motors were not legal in 2013. Perhaps you meant Banebots 550s or AndyMark 9015s?

[yash101]

To my opinion, the perfect robot would be the one that has a low center of gravity and still having all the features. Our robot, for example (team 1165) has a very low center of gravity. Yet, we were able to shoot into the highest goal and we were able to do a 30 point climb. The height of the robot doesn't matter. It should be anything that isn't too outrageous (e.g. 6 inches or 6 ft). Also, for the 'impossible': full autonomous throughout the game, automatically picking all the frisbees on the way and shooting them. The robot should align to the pyramid goal during autonomous and always shoot at it. Also, it should pick up and do a couple rounds automatically. After that, the robot should got the feeding station and wait for autonomous to end. The robot should be able to climb like team 254 (cheesypoofs). Whole court shooting would also be quite nice, and s good human player who always hits the pyramid goal would be a plus! Quite Impractical!?

[Racer26]

I'm pretty sure a 9 disc auto is physically possible, if you have a robot with enough ground clearance to straddle the discs under and in front of the pyramid, and your pickup drops off the back of your bot (1241-style)

Looks like this:

Fire your starting 3, possibly while dropping your pick up (which faces center field), and backing up toward the centerline discs.

Grab the centerline discs, and fire them as you drive all the way to the alliance wall with your pickup up.

Grab the forward and under-pyramid discs as you return to your starting position and fire them.

It'll be tight, but I'm pretty sure its possible with a robot that's designed for it.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I'm pretty sure a 9 disc auto is physically possible, if you have a robot with enough ground clearance to straddle the discs under and in front of the pyramid, and your pickup drops off the back of your bot (1241-style)

Looks like this:

Fire your starting 3, possibly while dropping your pick up (which faces center field), and backing up toward the centerline discs.

Grab the centerline discs, and fire them as you drive all the way to the alliance wall with your pickup up.

Grab the forward and under-pyramid discs as you return to your starting position and fire them.

It'll be tight, but I'm pretty sure its possible with a robot that's designed for it.

An auto like this is possible if you have a fast firing speed like 610, 1114, etc. 2056 is the closest team to hit this level. IIRC they have had several matches where they shoot 6-7 in auto before returning to the centerline and suck up 1-2 discs. A robot like you mention with a reverse pickup would do the trick.

[Racer26]

2056's 7 is not particularly tight on time at all. They had 7, + time to back up onto the centerline ready to collect those, all the way back in week 2 at ONTO.

1241's firing rate is ridiculously fast. I'm confident 1241 could have pulled off 9 if their chassis wasn't too low to clear a disc on the floor.

Your firing rate doesnt have to be THAT crazy fast to achieve a 9 disc auto. The problem is that most floor pickup designs required at least two 180 degree turns in order to pick up all 6 and shoot them.

1241 is one of the only ones I can think of that have their floor pickup oriented in the opposite direction to their shooter (which allows for a turn-less 9disc auto), but their chassis prevented them from driving over discs on the floor.

[Gregor]

If anyone could do a 9 disk, it would be 469 or 2590. Both have ground clearance, retractable floor pickups, and pickups on the back. For both of their 7 disks they drive over the disks and then collect them backwards. 987 may be able to do it too, but their intake is much smaller.

[BobbyVanNess]

Originally Posted by Gregor

If anyone could do a 9 disk, it would be 469 or 2590. Both have ground clearance, retractable floor pickups, and pickups on the back. For both of their 7 disks they drive over the disks and then collect them backwards. 987 may be able to do it too, but their intake is much smaller.

I was thinking of 2590 as well. The only problem with that machine is that it takes some time to get their shots off after getting back. I don't know if that bot is capable of accurately firing the centerline discs en route to the wall. While 987's camera targeting takes a second or two, I think they've got the programming power to possibly hit 8-9. I saw them attempt a centerline/middle of pyramid 7 disc on Archimedes. Maybe they could hit the front 2 as well...

But 469 is certainly in the conversation. Their collector seems to pick up pretty well from the front or back.

So what about an 8 disc auto? I haven't heard much about that. Say you start at the wall side of the pyramid with 2 discs, drive forward, collect the two in front, fire those 4, drive back collecting the discs under the pyramid and on the centerline, return and fire. Less changes in direction might make it somewhat more possible.

Although by not starting with 3, you leave one extra on the centerline. Maybe fire one on the way back then get the 3 on the centerline? Could be another way to do a 9 disc.