So like around 3 AM I had an idea. Why are people not using two slip gear punchers? or a single one that can fire two balls? There are all these double catapults and flywheels that can shoot two balls in succession so why not a punch? I’d say it would only be a sacrifice of one extra motor so not too much of a burden I wouldn’t think. Maybe with V5 it might be, but my school hasn’t gotten ours yet.
Someone posted on the vex discord a linear punch with two balls, in a line. One ball was higher than the other. The double shot worked.
I’ve seen that. It was cool, but probably very difficult to get consistent.
Having two punchers would be less space efficient than a 2BC, let alone figuring out a compact way to load both. Sure, it’s doable, but the low motor count on V5 makes it difficult.
There’s also the argument of chaining the two together, saving a motor. But then there’s still the space issues. It’s a viable solution, but I think it will be very rare.
+1 if you want that badly to shoot 2 balls at once, just use a 2BC
2 ball puncher is a great idea in theory and not so much practically. Transferring energy through the puncher through another ball gets a bit inconsistent as that system then relies on the balls being the same, which is hard when there’s a flywheel in your region.
My team, 3631X, is the one that posted our 2 ball puncher on the vex discord. With a little work and fine tuning, it works very consistently. In a way, it can also allow more ways for mounting and can even conserve space compared to a catapult because it doesnt need to be right by the intake for loading, and catapults generally require larger intakes and hoppers for loading balls when not directly using 1 or 2 rollers. It also requires less maintenance than a catapult and has very good range. It is also extremely powerful, but we havent bent a single important part on it yet, while we have heard numerous reports of stuff bending and breaking on catapults. So, all in all, it seems about just as good as a catapult, because a catapult is also better than it in many ways. So, I guess implementation and driving will decide which is a better option of the 2, but both are definitely viable and reliable.
Could you post a picture of how yours works? Like are the balls stacked or in a line?
The balls are in a line, where the first ball pushes the next out. I saw the vid on their Instagram, if this is the team I am thinking about.
Our team is using two punchers at different heights to hit the flags. Uses two motors but we don’t need an angler so doesn’t really matter. Intaking is a little interesting but not to hard. #PuncherGang
I’d love to see a video of this sounds really cool.
I don’t a picture of it with me right now but I do have an auton routine we used it in. Its not letting me upload a vid directly. Idk if the zip will work.
IMG_1527.mov.zip (2.02 MB)
Oooohh that makes a lot of sense. So by having them in a line the forward most ball gets the majority of the force and hits the top flag thank you so much!
ooh that’s quite nice.
And that works consistently? That’s pretty cool!
Yes. We do that in juggling. Say, when you’re juggling four balls in an oval pattern (shower), the math is 7,1 for the heights (really the times in the air measured in beats). You can collect two balls stacked in one hand and toss them together, and their heights end up with the upper one at 7 and the lower one at 5, meaning it comes back a moment earlier, right where you left the gap. The point is that the lower ball gets 5/7 of the speed of the upper ball in that toss, while it’s all one action.
In practice with the puncher this works because the two balls are not connected and so can bounce a tiny bit off each other, and because all the collisions are not perfectly elastic. Meanwhile the puncher is still there when the front ball is trying to virtually stop the back ball, ensuring the back ball gets launched, too. I expect tuning it took some effort.
The Game Manual <SG1> only allows for 1 (one) preload on the robot:
Hopefully, someone mentioned that to your team.
(Their auton goes and grabs a second ball from underneath the cap.)
I need glasses :). Happens when you an old geezer!
Yeah it took some time to tune but once it was tuned it worked like a charm.
Not surprising at all from juggling. It takes a while to learn to toss two balls lined up like that, but once you have it down it works really well, barely more difficult than tossing the balls normally.
Have you considered changing the programming on the slip gear? If it’s already drawn back, you could fire a lot faster.