So back in nothing but net there were 3 main ball launcher types: fly wheel, puncher, and catapult. my question is which would be best for accuracy. What I’ve seen so far is puncher, but I just wanted to make sure; so answer away.
Well first of all it doesn’t matter what type of shooter you use as much as how you build it. What works best largly depends on what you have experience designing/using before. A flywheel is my personal choice because I have experience with them and I think it would take up less space.
+1
I agree.
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From what I have seen, a puncher is more accurate than a flywheel. It is also more space-efficient than a flywheel or catapult.
In that case it sounds like given your experience you will be using a puncher. My main point in relation to the original post is that there is never really a “best” way. Which is perfectly demonstrated in this discussion 
I’ll be really interested to see if teams use the new vision sensor to help align their shots.
we only saw very limited success with the catapult, not to mention it is similarly difficult to load mechanically like a piston, so we personally are going to use a flywheel.
i think they also partially made the game to really use the vision sensor
would single action pistons have enough power?
oh yes definitely. we used one for preloads during nothing but net and they were more than powerful enough
My plan is to play around with the vision sensor and give some good examples to my teams on how to use it.
how does this catapult work?
I’m pretty sure a puncher would work the best considering a flywheel takes a second to “heat up” and the catapult shoots at an ark while the puncher is precise and shoots in a straight line, remember nbn was made to shoot at an arch to make it in the basket not hit a target
None of them shoot in a straight line. Once it leaves leaves whatever launches it, they all travel roughly in parabolic paths determined by the speed and launch angle. The flywheel has the best chance at reducing the parabola closer to a straight line by getting lift from backspin (magnus effect).
Personally, for this game, I see a puncher as the best option simply given that it would not take many motors (The balls are extremely light) and the fact as it can be fairly compact. And with the need for some form of ball intake as well as a lift for the caps, I can see space efficiency being stressed upon. However, I do feel that there is another form of launcher that can be used. If we jump back to tossup, teams had piston actuated levers that shot the large balls across the bar. Given the fact that the balls are extremely light, I can see the use of pneumatics in this case being useful.
The problem I see with punchers is aiming. I imagine one would need an entirely separate mechanism to aim a puncher
Imagine this: you align the puncher in such a way that the ball can hit the highest goal by being near the back side of the field. In order to aim for the middle goals, the robot can simply move forwards to say the parking zones or even closer if it needs to. There is no need for using a motor to aim / change height of the puncher.
That seems like an interesting idea…Hard to perfect I’d imagine
+1 seems good, but hard