As soon as I finished the kickoff video, I was thinking about using tube to carry a ball and sort of just dropping them over the hoop. Yes, I will only be able to use this for the 2 point hoops but I thought it would be the most insuring way of scoring safely rather than shooting.
Please replay any pros and cons about the idea and tell me what you think :rolleyes:
How far out will that tube extend?
Any answer greater than 14 inches is a wrong answer, that’s for sure.
Not necessarily, the rule says your robot can extend up to 14’’ in any direction but max height can be 84’’. Do the geometry, you can have a lot more than 14’’
I think being more “automatic” in your shooting will be a great benefit this year, so you are on to something.
If we assume you are going back and forth to get balls, keep in mind you would need to lower from 84" to 60" (at least) when on the other side of the field.
The most you can extend out it any one direction (barring height, so basically lateral) is 14".
No amount of geometry will change the length of a straight line.
I believe that the fender prevents directly dropping balls in the hoop because the edges of the fender are more than 14" from the edges of the hoops. And don’t forget about the fact that your bumpers will add more space to traverse. Those factors combined put the hoops farther than the distance robots can reach. Although, you could add a small piston on the end of an arm or something like that and that would compensate for the fact that the arm alone can’t reach the hoops.
A glancing at the field drawings and doing a little arithmetic, the front edge of the hoop is something like 12.5" behind the front edge of the fender. If you figure your robot’s bumper eats up 3.5" of your 14" extension, then your tube will be 2" short of the front edge of the rim. Something to think about in your design.
Also, this thread title seemed incredibly outdated when I first saw it. Scoring tubes is sooo 2011.
Just give it a little more juice and spit the balls the extra foot.
First of all:
[R02]
The Robot must satisfy the following size constraints:
horizontal dimensions must not exceed 28 by 38 in.,
the absolute height must not exceed 84 in.,
the height of the Robot at the start of the match must not exceed 60 in.,
any appendage may not extend more than 14 in. beyond the frame perimeter, and
no other part of the Robot may extend beyond the vertical projection of the Frame Perimeter (with the exception of minor protrusions permitted per 0).
Secondly:
A Fender is located directly below the Hoops at each end of the Court. The Fender is designed to protect the Hoops from damage by Robots. The Fender is 38-3/4 in. deep by 101 in. wide and measures 8-1/4 in. tall at the front, and 10-1/4 in. tall at the back against the Alliance Wall.
From my take on these 2 rules copied directly from the manual and the other factors that the hoops inner diameter is 18 inches and the hoop is 6 inches away from the backboard(at the narrowest part). 38.75-(6+18)=14.75-14=0.75. There would be no possible way to be directly above the hoop. This is just my take, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Are we talking only in Euclidean space, or can we generalize to non-linear space? 
Our robot design idea is use more then the first 4 dimensions. We are taking advantage of an alternative universe where our ball is allready in the hoop and switching that ball with the ball on our robot in this dimension. In one universe our robot does terrible, but great in this universe. The balls might be different(depending on how you interpret quantum physics), but I challenge the refs to definitively prove it one way or another. 
Don’t forget that for this to work you would have to line yourself up with the hoops. You would be out of the “key” zone, so other robots could easily push you out of alignment.
My team noticed that the ‘safe zone’ directly under the hoop is raised vertically a few inches, so it will be difficult to get directly under the hoops.
i was keeping rule [R02] in my mind too but was confused about the appendage part… anyone wanna help me making that part clear?
so appendage must not exceed 14 inch from frame parameter. but does frame parameter refers to initial robot height parameter or 84 inch absolute parameter height? im guessing initial robot parameter but hoping for the absolute one
The Frame Perimeter is defined in the Blue Box under [R01]:
The Frame Perimeter of a Robot is defined by the outer-most set of exterior verticies on the Robot that are within the Bumper Zone, which is between 2 and 10 in. from the floor. Minor protrusions no greater than ¼ in. such as bolt heads, fastener ends, and rivets are not considered part of the Frame Perimeter.
You cannot extend out more than 14" horizontally from your Frame Perimeter. To be consistent and make more sense, [R02 D] should read:
D. any appendage may not extend more than 14 in. beyond the vertical projection of the frame perimeter, and
This is definitely an interesting strategy, and it should work if there’s a piston type thing to lift the dropper. However, do you think that only reaching the second hoop will be a major problem? I have seen lots of videos showing nearly perfect arms when sitting still and lined up, but do you think that the accuracy will be more beneficial than the time to set up, the inability to reach the third hoop, and the potential to get rammed (which cannot be done in the key)? An alternate strategy would be a conveyor veritcally up, which then can then be tilted slightly and launced at ~7.5* from vertical? That way, the lining up and accuracy will be about the same, but it can reach the top hoop, and is also much less vulnerable to getting rammed out of alignment while the balls are rolling down the tube to the basket. What do you think?
It’s not possible because:
and that’s without bumpers, so you will always be 4-5inches away no matter what.