DEWBOT VIII Shooter

1640's Shooter requirements for Rebound Rumble are:

• This is a shooter; not a dumper
• Primarily targeting the top basket
• High scoring reliability (>67%) from Key or closer
• Ability to feed balls to alliance scoring field from the outbounder station
• Backspin to drop into basket and provide dead landing upon feeding
• Fast recycle; one shot per second (minimum)
• Automatic rangefinding & aiming
• Maintain low CoM for bridge balancing & preventing bridge tips

The Shooter system comprises:

1. A fixed-geometry overshot wheeled shooter
2. A tachometer to determine and thereby enable control of shooter wheel speed
3. A camera for aiming
4. A Drive Mode specifically for aiming the robot
5. A narrow-beam sonor to determine range to back-board

Key Technical Challenges & Statements

• A high shooter elevation (trajectory) will be needed to score in the top basket
• High trajectory shooters shooting from the Key cannot be easily blocked (regardless of shooter height)

Concepts

• Wheeled shooter was the only serious concept examined (well, there was some catapult testing early)
• An overshot wheeled shooter offers the desired backspin
• To manage mass & cost, it was decided early that a decision to use pivot drive (which was subsequently made) would also become a decision to fix the shooter azimuth relative to the chassis. If we use pivot drive, we will aim the robot; we will not use a turret to aim the shooter.

Prototypes

Prototyping was limited and the final shooter closely resembled the prototype.

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  Assembling shooter wheels

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  Assembling prototype

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  Testing undershot wheel configuration

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  Testing overshot wheel configuration

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  Prototype mounted on drill press platform

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  Testing prototype on DEWBOT VI chassis

Design Details

55 deg

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