Shooter Week 2

We started out by building a base to mount the shooter on. The base was composed of various sized 8020 bars, connected to each other with sliders and bolts. Once the base was built, we then build a feeder-type system composed of two axles and wheels to present the ball to the flywheel in order to gain a more consistent feed. We also replaced the all thread that provided the structure for the back plate with metal tubes and self-threading bolts. We did this to help make it easier to insert and take out the rods as needed when testing different sized back plates. At the end of this week, we put together a new shooter with very similar geometry to our previous shooter, but it includes a feeding system with many axles of wheels to help reduce spin before it contacts the flywheel. This new shooter is looking promising and it keeps the ball in contact with smaller wheels all the way up until it contacts the flywheel, cutting out all dead space that caused inconsistencies. We are continuing to slowly make progress, and everyone is continuing to learn a lot each day. We learned that we do not need a completely adjustable hood because we can just change the rpm of the motor and still get the ball to land in the desired goal. We also learned that even a slightly bent axle can create lots of vibrations and cause inconsistencies in the shooter. We learned how to cut down on vibrations by using straight axles and loctite. Also, the presentation of the ball into the shooter matters more than we thought it would in order to gain a consistent shot. This week, we were able to cut down on vibrations and achieve a reasonably consistent shot into the goal. Something we need to work on as a group is to work faster. While we may get the parts built, we work very slow, but hope to cut down our time in the next coming
weeks. Our goal for this week is to think about and design the best version of our shooter. We are going to achieve this by having group discussions with the shooter group about what we want to do/use to maximize the efficiency of our shooter. We also hope to cut down our work time and get things built quicker.