With a fixed angle ‘cannon’ and the camera used only to aim the robot at the giant 30" hole, you should (if you maximize the height of the cannon and the muzzle velocity) be able to hit with all 10 balls. The only problem will be getting your throwing mechanism up to speed with enough sustainable momentum to complete firing in 10 seconds.
a wise man once told me:
“Dude, don’t get to head of yourself” -some wise man
You don’t have to do the center goal, and call it hard, getting those corner goals is hard enough too. Getting the ball is hard too. THIS WHOLE GAME IS A CHALLENGE, IT’S NOT EASY! 
I’d be interested to see a balled launched and then knocked out of the air by the opponents ball, intentionally.
If a team could figure out Star Wars I would be pretty impressed.
I don’t know how quickly you could shoot balls, it really depends on the launcher you used, and how quickly you could feed balls to it. I think it’s possible to get all 10 balls from 1 robot in the center, I think it would be difficult to get balls from multiple robots into that center goal. You would have to work an autonomous with them so that one would fire right after the other ended, or so the balls would “alternate” landing in the goal.
Since we’re combining auton and normal challenges, here; a robot that can score all 10 balls into the center in autonomous (without dead reckoning), and that can shoot a ball into the center goal while moving from behind the half-court line during human controlled mode. I’ve calculated that a shooter at the 5’ height limit firing balls at 12 m/s at a 45 degree angle could hit the target from roughly 44’, neglecting resistance forces. Air resistance will decrease this, but I think you won’t lose 10’ due to it, so a half-court shot is do-able.
For more difficulty, it should be able to make a certain percentage of its shots as well.
We attempted this and did a few tests. An electric leaf blower could do it, but only if we tracked the ball on it’s course (not very easy). Also, the power requirments were too great (it’s only one 12V battery)
We also tried a garbage can Airzooka, but it didn’t provide enough air power to reasonably and acurately push a ball, not to mention timing would be a real pain…all in all, we determined the concept was not reliable or feasible enough to merit basing a robot on it. If any other team can do this, MAJOR PROPS!!!
That would be quite an impressive defensive robot. If anyone does that I’m going to want to see that in action.
To change some of my last post, the shot from behind half-court would not be required to use the camera, because I don’t know if it has enough range to see the target (accurately) from long distances.
I also want to see one alliance score all 30 balls they start with into any combination of the goals during autonomous, as long as all 30 balls score.
According to one of the people from IFI up at the Kickoff in Manchester New Hampshire, the camera should be able to see full field, like from one set of goals to the other.
The one ball that came in our kit was, of all colors, “vision-tetra green” (that’s what we call anything of that color). Ironically, at kickoff, one of our mentors was joking about tracking the balls and shooting them down using the camera. We might mess around with it if we somehow find some free time during build season.
I think the pasty resistance for this game will be a bot that continuously tracks the goal with its launcher
and IF the goal is within range AND IF a ball is in the bot, it fires all by itself
this means all the driver has to do is drive the bot over balls to pick them up, then drive the bot within range of the goal. The bot does the rest.
If it picks up balls while its in range of the goal it fires them immediately.
That would be awesome
but not easy!
Perhaps a total round score of 125 points, it would be very hard to accomplish.
so you pack a flashlight and a can of Spam and pick them up at the regional
WC
Does anyone else find it disturbing that they are suddenly sold out?
I think the pasty resistance for this game will be a bot that continuously tracks the goal with its launcher
and IF the goal is within range AND IF a ball is in the bot, it fires all by itself
this means all the driver has to do is drive the bot over balls to pick them up, then drive the bot within range of the goal. The bot does the rest.
If it picks up balls while its in range of the goal it fires them immediately.
That would be awesome
but not easy!
We’re working on it… :rolleyes:
What about making all 10 shots in autonomous mode without leaving the robot’s starting square?
I overheard Dean telling Woodie what two mentors were discussing at kickoff…
“Okay, I’ll build a robot that your robot can drive up on, and you can score all the balls into the center goal without going over the 60’’ mark.”
Sounds quite infeasible, and this would only work if one of the two teams were choosing alliances.
There goes that Voltron idea from last night. 
infeasible … maybe …
But check out this video of two ROOKIES in our VERY FIRST MATCH taking up only one space on the ramp (we’re on the bottom) in the 2003 game “Stack Attack”.
how about picking up your opponents robot, full of balls
and stuffing it into your goal?
Id pay real money to see that!
I think the beez kneez would be a holonomic-drive bot that uses the camera to constantly track the target light and always faces that direction, with constantly-updated fire solutions feeding to the launcher. Hitting the target while moving parallel to the plane of the goal is the pasty resistance.
“Okay, I’ll build a robot that your robot can drive up on, and you can score all the balls into the center goal without going over the 60’’ mark.”
As I read the rule, this is already illegal.
<G16> Maximum Height - A ROBOT may not extend above 60” above the floor or the ALLIANCE PLATFORM in a stable configuration at any time during a match.
It doesn’t say the robot can’t be taller than 60", it says the robot can’t extend more than 60" over the floor or platform. If it got there by climbing on top of another robot, hasn’t it “extended” itself over 60 inches?