Week 1 Recap: Prototyping
We went into the prototyping season with the goal of prototyping multiple different types of shooters and multiple types of intakes. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened and probably won’t happen. Prototyping is something we’re getting better at, but we won’t be at 1678 level for a long time.
We have prototyped one type of intake and shooter each though, and we’re very happy with the results from those. Our intake used Hype Blocks, and our shooter was just done on some scrap plywood from the old 2023 field. If it works it works. Along with this, we also tested some material interaction. All of the testing videos can be found HERE.
Material Testing
We tested five materials. Vinyl(car wrap), Polycarbonate, Plywood, Aluminum, and HDPE. In order from best to worst:
- HDPE
- Vinyl
- Aluminum
- Polycarbonate
- Plywood
Surprisingly, Polycarb was awful. I’m pretty sure if we sanded the plywood it would have performed better than the polycarb. As for what this means, it kind of depends. While we have HDPE, we only have thick(1”) slabs of varying straightness. Anywhere from no warp(currently on the cnc bed as a spoilboard) to 5” of warp along a 36” edge. Right now our two main considerations are buying thin slices of HDPE or using vinyl on polycarbonate. As HDPE is lighter and we don’t really care about strength as a Note tunnel backing, we’ll probably go with HDPE.
Intake Prototype Testing
- With our two testing of a dual roller intake, wheels from 2.25” all the way up to 4” in various configurations successfully sucked in the Notes
- Various angles from 0 degrees(parallel with the ground) all the way up to 90 degrees also sucked in the Notes
- Various durometers and stiffness all the way from 40a flex wheels to 90a stealth wheels sucked in the Notes
- Various compressions from 0” to 1.5” of compression sucked in the Notes
- Note that at 1.5” of compression the entire intake prototype started flexing. It’d probably be smart to not run that in competition
So What’s the Conclusion?
While we don’t have any hard statistics to back this up, it seems that if you touch the note at all with a wheel, you will be able to intake it. Intaking really doesn’t need more than .5” of compression, if even that much. This is ideal for Vector, as the archetype we’ve decided on relies on an intake that also functions as a shooter.
Shooter Prototype Testing
Our shooter had limited testing, as it was a proof of concept. Vector is going to a week 1 event, so I only expect us to be shooting from the fender and maybe the launchpad on the Stage. I’m not incredibly concerned with fiddling with the dials of a horizontal roller shooter right now.
- .25”-.5” is ideal compression for a top and bottom roller shooter
- Feeding matters a lot
- Inconsistent feeding can wildly throw off shots
- “Lobbing it” is fine for close range shots
- I’m not sure how well no spin will work for long range shots, but Vector will never be doing long range shots so that’s not something we will be trying to solve
Downsides of horizontal roller shooters
- Less contact time
- We might mitigate this by having 2 shooter rollers
- Axles must be perfectly parallel to shoot well
- Some deviation is allowable, but it makes shots wobble
So What’s the Conclusion?
Are horizontal rollers perfect for shooting? No. Will it matter for fender and launchpad shots? Probably not. It seems to be good enough for Vector’s goals, and that’s what matters. If you would like more in depth horizontal roller shooter testing, go check out this post from 4481. They do amazing work over there.
Field Building
We built the amp earlier this week, but we’ve now nearly completed the speaker and have prepared all of the wood for the stage, so hopefully we’ll have more field interaction videos soon.
Once we debug our swerve chassis, there will hopefully be a programming update detailing the issues we had, and I’ll post some periodic updates if anything major happens before the next weekly post. Oh Yeah!