Kicker

[Sunny]

For those of you who weren't there,

The kicker works..."well." The fact that it works now is an accomplishment at that. We're using a very nice system to hold the kicker in place and release.

Just a couple of things.

a) I believe the ball is getting a decent arc, but needs more power. Right now, max power is getting over one bump and a decent distance. I want to be able to traverse the entire field on max power.

a1) The rope seems to be stretching under the strain of the kicker. We really need to put on the rope that won't stretch under those conditions, and maybe having the smaller clutch might allow us to use a smaller, more manageable rope.

b) We also need to have the shifter disengage and not have to unwind when we have to kick. It's extremely difficult to unwind the winch and kick, and doing that in a match is near impossible.

c) In coordination with "tweaking" the kicker, it might behoove us to reconsider the shape of the kicker to one that more closely matches one that's made by Mr. Smith. There's a number of reasons for this.
c1) We'll get more of a follow through.
c2) We'll get a solid contact point for the ball
c3) With a curved kicker, we will have some space to create a backing for the ball to rest in. Many people have mentioned that the ball goes under the roller, but it was designed to have a backing.

But all in all, the meeting left me in a good mood and with an extra spring in my step.
Sunny

[Sunny]

e) We found a nice working mechanism, and I think the merit behind it is excellent, just a thought though, here's a video a motor kicker that get's some good distance. And If you look at some of their autonomous vid and stuff, you can see that they get more kick than in their demos.

It might be worth it to revisit a toughbox/CIM idea. Maybe the kicker we build on Logan's robot(If we're going to) should utilize that setup.

- Sunny

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/user/OTHSRobotic ... ILoMjcj1_E

[Tanner]

a) I believe the ball is getting a decent arc, but needs more power. Right now, max power is getting over one bump and a decent distance. I want to be able to traverse the entire field on max power.

Oh yeah, definitely. I kinda just hope the motor we're using for the shifter doesn't blow out under the strain sooner or later.

b) We also need to have the shifter disengage and not have to unwind when we have to kick. It's extremely difficult to unwind the winch and kick, and doing that in a match is near impossible.[/quote[

I want to get this working tomorrow. It shouldn't be too hard to wire, though the programming may be a tiny bit interesting. I want to get the encoder for the shifter mounted if we can just to make things easier for cocking and a adjustable power.

e) We found a nice working mechanism, and I think the merit behind it is excellent, just a thought though, here's a video a motor kicker that get's some good distance. And If you look at some of their autonomous vid and stuff, you can see that they get more kick than in their demos.

It might be worth it to revisit a toughbox/CIM idea. Maybe the kicker we build on Logan's robot(If we're going to) should utilize that setup.

From what I see their using a toughbox with two CIMs to drive their kicker with only one CIM per toughbox to drive either side. That itself would probably have a heck of a lot of torque and lots of speed with chaining.

Now I know we can't sacrifice another CIM to make the count two, but perhaps a toughbox with just one would work?

-Tanner

[Sunny]

The guy on the forums said that they are using one toughbox, and one CIM to power the kicker.

Maybe prototype vs. actual was different.

[Tanner]

The guy on the forums said that they are using one toughbox, and one CIM to power the kicker.

Maybe prototype vs. actual was different.

Hm.. Idk..

Fun facts:

• It takes ~1/30th of a second for the piston to disengage.
• It takes ~1/15th of a second for the kicker to move towards the ball
• The ball leaves the ground at a good 45 degree angle. It just immediately lifts off the ground.

Did I mention it sounds uuber neat in slow motion? Will post a composite picture later.

Anyone know anyone in the high-speed camera business?

-Tanner

[freds]

I can see the toughbox/cim could provide the torque to kick. I think something we might should put on the L-chassis. Again, remember how hot the motor got when using power to hold something still.

We are going to work on putting the supershifter in neutral vs despooling on Sunday. I want to take a closer look at the tubing path to be sure we are getting the most bang for the tubing.

Reshaping the kicker would be a plus, just figuring out the design is the hard part, so we cut the metal most correct the first time.

Fred

[Sunny]

I can see the toughbox/cim could provide the torque to kick. I think something we might should put on the L-chassis. Again, remember how hot the motor got when using power to hold something still.

We are going to work on putting the supershifter in neutral vs despooling on Sunday. I want to take a closer look at the tubing path to be sure we are getting the most bang for the tubing.

Reshaping the kicker would be a plus, just figuring out the design is the hard part, so we cut the metal most correct the first time.

Fred

I think we can possibly get some tubing, and get the bionicle arm in the back and bend it to our specifications.

And about the CIM, the kicker would essentially be sitting up the entire time, and the force of the kick would be determined by the speed of the CIM, so that won't kill the motor.

Sunny.

@Tanner: Those specs are impressive. When we do the whole shift out->disengage subroutine, I wanna see how long it takes to do that. If it's a good bit of time, It might be something we'll need to consider when driver training and stuff.

[Tanner]

@Tanner: Those specs are impressive. When we do the whole shift out->disengage subroutine, I wanna see how long it takes to do that. If it's a good bit of time, It might be something we'll need to consider when driver training and stuff.

It shouldn't take too long at all. When we get it all tuned it should take a second or two. Max two. Maybe more. Not very many though.

-Tanner

[Sunny]

@Tanner: Those specs are impressive. When we do the whole shift out->disengage subroutine, I wanna see how long it takes to do that. If it's a good bit of time, It might be something we'll need to consider when driver training and stuff.

It shouldn't take too long at all. When we get it all tuned it should take a second or two. Max two. Maybe more. Not very many though.

-Tanner

I would think half a second...Maybe we should have two switches...one to disengage the shifter and one to disengage the launcher. I honestly thought that the entire subroutine should take a total of like half a second...max.

[Tanner]

I would think half a second...Maybe we should have two switches...one to disengage the shifter and one to disengage the launcher. I honestly thought that the entire subroutine should take a total of like half a second...max.

Well, you've got to release some of the tension so you can shift out. That's the only part that may take a bit. 'Course I don't know if we have to do that. I'll have to find out tomorrow. If we don't have to, it should take a very short amount of time. If we do, a bit longer.

And I would think we would make it just one button for fire. Don't have any reason not to be armed except for safety. It's pretty darn safe as it is now unless the rope slips. The piston isn't moving even if we lose pressure as long as you don't like bump the robot when that happens.

I can even make it really safe so that when we get disabled, it automatically disengages everything.

-Tanner