Coming back from our first competition, we noticed the biggest difficulties coming from our shooter were dealing with the changing PSI of the balls leading us to overshoot our target as the day went on.
We are using a single flywheel shooter with no adjustable hood. Right now we have a power scaling function mapped to our driverstation and d-pad, so our driver/backup can change it on the fly, but I am wondering if there is a more permanent fix (code or design) that can help with this issue. (Especially as we cannot adjust the shooter for auton code)
We are considering using a higher angle shooter (ours is at a relatively shallow angle), but we want to explore our options first.
Do you actually have data about changing cargo pressure or are you assuming? Do you have any detail about the magnitude of pressure change or the piece-to-piece pressure variation at any point in time? Cargo we’ve purchased from AndyMark (not the KoP cargo, which was horribly leaky) have held pressure very well over multiple days.
It sounds like you are saying that you believe cargo at lower pressure is being shot farther than cargo at higher pressure. Is that right? If so, what mechanism would you be expecting to cause that?
We designed our shooter to maximize the distance/time the cargo remains in contact with the shooter wheel and backing (6 inch wheel, 90-130 degrees of wrap). We made this choice thinking that longer contact would help minimize the effect of cargo pressure or diameter variation on shot consistency. We don’t have an alternative design to compare to, but we have not seen the kind of accuracy drift you mention in either practice or competition.