I have seen many successful teams use the “China load” strategy, and I would like to try this for worlds. My question was if it was possible to pick up a ball from the loading station AND from the ground in the same match using China loading (no pneumatics). I am aware that the wall of the loading station is taller than the normal ball, I just wanted to see if any other teams were capable of accomplishing this. I have low- quality drawings below
You might look into a floating intake style desighn like some of the floating intakes that were very popular in last yeas game to accomadate the variouse cube sizes. you may also try a tratchet system that when spinning forward intakes the ball skipping on the ratchet and when the motor reverses the ratchet locks and lifts the intake up using a 4bar system. then when you go back forward the ratchet disengages and the intake drops and itnakes again.
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Ok, thank you! I have seen this be used before, so I will try it.
Yes, what you have described is something many teams do. For example, the robot that first introduced China loading into Rapid Relay used pneumatics to adjust the intake. (I would send an image but it might be copyrighted or something).
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You could potentially use some type of mechanism that is extended when it isn’t against the wall and retracted when against the wall. This would be to make a ramp up without taking away space from the “China load” so it still functions. My team tried using 2 of the 90 degree 3X5 plates and extending them, but we couldn’t attach anything to the 5 pitch end which we were using as our ramp. Then we tried using 2 shock absorbers, and this worked OK, but we didn’t like how they would sometimes go through holes in the X plate of the loader and turn the robot off course.
We ended up doing something you may or may not be familiar with called “hot swapping”. We built 2 intakes for states, one for regular drive, and another for China Loading. We would take off the regular intake, and the ramp, and attach the china loading intake. For worlds, we will be doing something similar, but only moving a single roller and replacing chain.
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There is no point to this mechanism. Your alliance can just grab the missen ball, its not worth extra weight, friction, or a less smooth entry into the loading zone.
I am afraid that you do not completely understand this “China loading” strategy, this mechanism can score up to 300 points in a regular teamwork match with a decent alliance, compared to the (about200) points you could score with an outstanding alliance using the normal strategy. With the correct coding, you can repeatedly load, pass, and score up to 23+ balls a minute without having to worry about DQs, assuming your loaders don’t accidentally fumble a ball.
If you do not fully understand what I am talking about, I found a video for you to watch to see this strategy in action.
Not to critisize your comment, but I would like to add additional details. 300 points is not the average with it, this video is from an older competition. Teams have gotten upwards of 600 points with it.
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