hi in this video we're going to be addressing a whole bunch of the different ways that you
can launch debris or any other FTC game element this shooter launches balls linearly using the
tension in a rubber tube a motor pulls back the mechanism and releases launching the ball out the
pros to this design are that it can shoot really far because it's so powerful and you can vary the
distance it shoots by changing how far the motor pulls it back also it can shoot almost any kind of
projectile because it's so flexible the downsides are that it's big taking up lot of space in the
robot and it takes a long time to shoot each ball this is another one of our launching prototypes
this is a dual flywheel design that uses the super grippy rubbery reels from Banebots with
this design you can adjust the distance between the two launchers to shoot various sized balls
right now we have it set up for the particles with the 2016-2017 FTC season so this is another
catapult mechanism and it uses a linkage system so that you're able to shoot a little bit faster
but you don't have any adjustability over your range or shooting distance so the way it works
is this gear rotates around and catches on the first linkage with this stop and as this linkage
goes around and once this stop is halfway through it's no longer held down by the stop and so it
swings back around and the result is the arm flings out and shoots the particle or whatever
debris you're shooting out so this is an example of a shooting we're gonna be changing the world
so this is another one of our ideas for launching particles it's called a slingshot and so another
prototype idea is kind of like a popper where you use flex polycarbonate and you like put a
tension on it so that it will pop this is another catapult mechanism that you could use that uses
the tension of rubber bands and a gear rack system so you can adjust whatever tension
you want so that you can change the distance of whatever you're shooting and it also has a
release mechanism down here and once that release mechanism goes off the servo comes back up and the
gravity takes this armed out of the catapult the lock goes back in place the server goes
back down stretching up the rubber bands and it will shoot off so here's how it works all these
systems have a lot of pros and cons to them and we'll start over here with the catapult or the
rapid fire catapult because it has a linkage there can be a lot of mechanical failure but
because of this linkage it shoots really quickly and because it's spring powered there's a lot of
accuracy to the system and the only disadvantage to the system is that you don't have any distance
control because there's a set spring tension and unless you can figure out a way to adjust that
spring tension that's the fixed distance and shot that you're going to have with the popper
it's another sort of continuous system because the motor is just rotated in one direction and
then you're basically primed and shooting again a disadvantage of the system again is you don't have
any distance control because you're just relying on the mechanical flex of a piece of material but
you also have good accuracy that way because you're going to have a consistent shot every
single time the flywheels on the other hand are not going to be as accurate because they have to
rev up and depending on voltage they're going to have a lot of problems but they do do well
with aiming because you can change the speed of each wheel and that results in spin or change in
arc and you can also change the speed to resolve in different distances and other disadvantage is
that you're really restrained to balls because the wheels conform to ball is much better and spin and
just the way that the ball is flying through the air works much better than say a cube and then
for this catapult because you have a gear rack system which allows you to adjust the tension on
your rubber bands you have variable distance but you're giving up a lot of speed because you have
to you know bring it back up and then lock it down and then basically prime it and because of
that you're losing a lot of speed and there's a lot of mechanical failure that there can be
but again it is very accurate because you can change the distance and you have a set tension
thanks for watching bye