Hey!
Our team recently build the stage and as well the trap door.
We find it pretty difficult to shoot the note from the ground like other teams without holding the door open while shooting.
Does your trap do the same or is it pretty easy to shoot?
Our trap is easy to shoot, but we are suspect that it will have to be held open at competitions. We’ve heard that FIRST designed the trap so that you can’t shoot into it.
The flap on our trap is made of lightweight hardboard and didn’t need two iron pipes worth of counterweight. We’ve measured the force at the bottom to hold it open. It takes 1.8 OZ, so pretty close to the 2 OZ spec.
We are considering building a new flap out of Lexan to see if a heavier flap changes the dynamics.
Thanks!
AndyMark does offer the field accurate flap for only $97, which is more than a bargain for me if you looking to make something field accurate. Comes with the correct hinges, door, and weights.
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Also, remember that a lot of the videos that are coming out are still incredibly hard to do for the average team, such as shooting the trap or doing a 5-note auto. This is not to discourage you from doing it, just to point out that they make it look a lot easier than it actually is.
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I completely agree.
We’ve got one on our stage setup and it’s super easy to accommodate.
The trap seems itchy enough that you really want to get it right for your testing and not show up to something just so slightly different, but incompatible, at a competition.
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Even with the door though, it doesn’t necessarily take into account the friction of the material of the rest of the Trap assembly that the note will likely rub/pinch against. We’re seriously considering making at least one of our Traps completely to field spec out of polycarbonate, just to be safe.
I would not assume any mechanisms that claim to shoot into the trap work properly on the real field without a competition-accurate trap assembly. The last thing you want is to show up to an event and have your trap shooting mechanism not work right.
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After building the trap and putting what we found to be the exact amount of weight at the top (640 grams/1.411 pounds), it seems to be too easy to push the trap door.
In the field tour FIRST published about the stage, they showed that the note gets stuck if you don’t push the trap door hard enough. In our tests, the trap seems to be much looser, and the note gets stuck only half of the time.
We were wondering if someone else had the same experience and if someone with a dynamometer can check how much force the trap door applies to the note.