How are you going to load the ball into this hood? This is a much bigger gap that the ball would have to jump than in something like a TP angle changing hood, and I don’t think it would be especially easy to build around that. You would need a piece hanging behind the main track to bridge it and that piece would have to be huge in this case, probably 7-8" on it’s own.
I would also be worried about the distance between the bottom of the hood and the indexer/uptake assembly itself. In all but one angle, the ball is going to be closer or farther than 6.3" from that assembly and would therefore have issues getting up. This issue was mitigated, at least looking at 169A’s hood, in TP by having the lowest position being lined up with with the static track. These hoods also had a much smaller angle range that it seems like you’re trying to use, making this difference easier to deal with. These were also dealing with squishy balls, which have much better distance tolerance than CU balls.
Dude. Did you read the whole post? His computer wouldn’t allow him to continue. I may be mistaken, but the bridge problem would definitely be taken care of.
I agree that the size of these balls makes any sort of system that precisely controls them challenging. This concept wouldn’t be easy do build, but I do think it’s doable, and theoretically it’s better than a trapdoor.
I wonder if one could use a differential to open a trapdoor, rather than ratchets. same functionality as a trapdoor, with the benefits of using a diff over ratchets (friction mostly)
I don’t think that friction is a great reason to use diffs instead of rachets.
Diffs are much more complicated to build well and are known for being very high-friction, especially with the VEX ecosystem. You generally need to use 393 bearings to keep them low friction enough to even be worth doing.
I agree with you here and you have a valid point. I think this solution was relatively elegant given the few number of gears needed to power this. A ratchet system to get this same functionality is a lot more complex and arguably high (if not higher) on friction.
It’s not necessarily an angle changing hood, but it can be if you wanted it to be. It’s a trap door more than anything. It functions like a trap door, but it uses the hood of the flywheel instead of an actual door.
My biggest question is if this system is even needed on a robot (trap door that is). Based on the simulations, it seems useful. I see it more useful for programming more than anything else because the robot is now capable of staying in place while also cycling out balls from the goals. This will be necessary in programming skills to increase the consistency rate of the program. This is because the less movements a robot makes, the better the odds of completing the task accurately (in programming).
It depends on how well built they are. Both can be made low friction; a ratchet can be made easier though. The only difference would be that you can’t angle and spin up the flywheel at the same time with a ratchet but unless you’re going at really high speeds this spin up time will be nearly negligible and the power losses mentioned in the dual output mode would strip the dif of a portion of its spin up acceleration anyways.