Having played basketball myself, the two most important assets to a good shooter are being square to the basket and having proper arc on your shot. Very rarely do players utilize the back board to make a shot, hence a “swish” where the ball touches neither the backboard nor the rim. In human version of basketball, this is the most efficient way to shoot, particularly with defense.
Our team has found it an obvious idea to have the shooting be autonomous, because human error would play far too much of a part in the shooting.
I had the idea of having the autonomous part be sensing the color of the rim. Since the rim is a circle, this avoids having to determine the robot’s angle in relation to the hoop. From sensing where the rim is, the Kinect could determine distance, plug that into a formula and change the angle of the shooting mechanism to determine the arc of the ball.
Coming from a newby, is this a feasible idea? I see making the angle of the shooting mechanism as being feasible, but I am not sure about the programming?
Thoughts? Thoughts on shooting ideas as a whole?