devlog #1: pew pew

what am i doing

i am making a robot for this year’s FTC season
FTC is a robotics competition, and this year we’re basically playing arcade basketball
the objective is (basically) to shoot as many balls into a goal as possible

some theory

the way i am choosing to launch balls into the goals is through a flywheel shooter
a flywheel is just a disk that spins super duper fast (for me, at ~6000 RPM) with a lot of mass
this gives it a lot of rotational kinetic energy, given by K = (Iω²) / 2
I is the rotational mass (moment of inertia, in kg m²), ω is the angular velocity (in rad s⁻1)

anyways, this is my first design of my actual shooter
there are two parameters that influence the trajectory of a projectile (ignoring air resistance)
the exit velocity, and the launch angle

how im doing it

the exit velocity is handled by touching the ball to the super fast spinning projectile
the launch angle is handled, in my design, through an adjustable hood mechanism

this adjustable hood utilizes a servo motor (a motor that lets us control its position instead of its speed) to drive a white “pinion” gear, that drives a pink “roller” gear, that drives the actual back of the white “hood” itself

the hood is constrained in place through a retaining piece that acts like a rail almost, and slides along that to be able to go up and down

things to improve

unfortunately, this uses a lot of space
i plan to add this onto a turret mechanism, which will be able to revolve 360 degrees
but this has a base of almost 310 mm (~1 foot), so i need to kill the footprint somehow

also, i need to put the pink roller gear further up onto the ramp in order to allow it to have a greater track length upwards, and maybe even fit the bare motors there