Week 1 here in the NE with team 176:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJm7ZYfn35c
Shooter Specs:
-Flywheel type
-Twin 6" wheels
-mini-cim 1:1 to the wheels
Things to consider:
-Gap between Wheels
-Exit angle
-wheel speed
-compression(constant or varied) against hood
-Height of shooter from the ground
Key:
Finding the optimum sweet spot, the solution lies within all the parameters listed above!
Good Luck All!
Looking good!
Any findings on the difference between a fresh ball and a used/worn ball?
The ball in the video was fresh to start the test and had tears in it by the end of the weekend. (ball bounced back into the chain…) The consistency didn’t appear to change with the slightly torn up ball.
After we got our tower built, we shot around 50-80 shots from 3-18 ft and the consistency seemed pretty solid. But we just received some new boulders and will be testing those throughout the week.
We’ve been experimenting with single-wheeled shooters such as this, and today we finally tested with multiple balls.
Here’s a picture of the setup we used, with about 1" of compression.
The wheels were wrapped with a self vulcanizing tape (a fairly sticky rubber finish). We saw pretty large variances from ball to ball. One ball in particular shot consistently higher by a couple of feet. We found that the coefficient of friction of one ball on the rubber wheel surface was much higher (like a factor of 2!), but we couldn’t discern any other difference between the balls. Very strange. This particular ball came from andymark in the same box as a ‘slicker’ ball, but I don’t know if it’s from the same batch.
I’d suggest that if you make a wheeled shooter you test with as many game pieces as you can find!
Try using timing belt and a pulley instead of chain. Much better damping at high speed. What’s you target RPM for your wheel?
