Me and my team are having difficulty deciding on a launch system. We all agreed not to flow with the mainstream and create a flywheel (just by seeing what other teams are doing). Can anyone advise a different launch system that could be able to match up against flywheels?
Thanks for taking time responding 
I donât think that any other launch system will be as effective as a flywheel, at least for the early season. Flywheels have proven to be very reliable in the 2006 and 2012 FRC games so I would stick with it and try to learn as much as you can from what those guys did. There are unique designs for these games out there if thatâs what youâre looking for. It just takes a bit of searching. 
You could attempt to make a launching system similar to a pinball machine that acts as a bat to deflect the balls. The device is known as a âflipperâ if you did not know.
Iâm sure that you could figure out some way of exerting enough force to send the balls flying in a similar fashion.
Uh. Why?
Are you also going to refuse to use wheels, because everyone else does? Or make them yourself, out of plexiglass just to be different?
If years of testing by people in the real-world have found that flywheels are the most consistent way of throwing a baseball, then why would you make your design (which is going to basically be a pitching-machine) out of anything else?
And if you say âto be different,â thatâs not a good reason.
The best ideas are those that you think of on your own.
My suggestion : Donât base your decisions off of others.
I agree with this, but if you see that others are performing well with their flywheel prototypes then you should probably try out your own prototype of a flywheel launcher after testing your own ideas.
Flywheels will be mostly discussed on the forums because of their accuracy and efficiency compared to another launcher such as a catapult.
Not true. The best ones are the ones that work the best, regardless of where they came from. I know there are teams that are out there who want to make the most unique robot, but I donât believe those are the same teams who want to make the best robot. Their goal is to stand out, maybe win a design award, but not to have the most effective robot on the field.
These days there is an overwhelming amount of design convergence. I also see a lot of teams starting from scratch almost every year instead of studying robots from previous years that had mechanisms to accomplish similar tasks (especially for NbN, which has scoring elements strikingly similar to Clean Sweep). But having a unique design doesnât necessarily mean that it isnât the most effective or that it isnât meant to be the most effective. itâs just that the highly competitive unique designs always end up being copied.
The best teams, from my two years of experience in FRC is that the best ideas are the ones that you think of on your own.
My favorite example of this is for Breakaway in 2010 with Team 469. Instead of building a mobile, ball fetching robot, they locked themselves into where the balls came out and redirected them into the goals. They may not have won, but it was very unique, and it formed a reputation for them. Their record was 86-12-0, impressive to say the least.
The best designs tend to be the most unique, thus being your own ideas. Sometimes the best robots wonât win. Thereâs more components, like strategy, and even a luck factor sometimes.
I know that VEX has a reputation for people looking at the best robots and copying them. Why do they copy the best? Usually because theyâre unique, and have something different.
You can do well with what everyone else is doing, but the best are going to do something different.
This is so true, if youâre going to copy the best robots at least put your own twist to the design to better it and make it even more unique. Going above and beyond the other teamsâ designs is what allows you to win matches (with the help of the drivers :P.)
I was the same way, I wanted to be the âNext Green Egg Roboticsâ by coming up with something totally unique and work super efficiently. But I slowly learned that the best designs come down to two main concepts. Like last year was scissor lifts or reverse bars. or the prior year was 6 bars or single pivot tank tread arm.
I am almost positive some of the best robots will be a flywheel shooter. Sure you could make something else that you think would work but maybe start with a flywheel and work off of that. Make it more efficient than other teams. Maybe it can adjust angle, vary speed, shoot more than one ball at a time, or disengage to work as a robot lifter. The possibilities are endless and no two robots are alike.
what I would do if I were you, is that I would take one of the ideas that already exists, and put your own spin on it, make it unique in some way, for example, my team is using a flywheel shooter, but we wanted to stand out from the crowd, so we have a twist on it that makes it different from any I have seen so far.
For the FTC 2009-2010 game HotShot, at the game day at U of Texas at Arlington, âflippersâ were the dominate high goal scoring method.
The winning team had autonomous drive and shoot with most 4" whiffleball preloads hitting the 9" dia high goal from a distance of 4 feet.
Compare and contrast:
Game HotShot NbNet
mfg FTC(Tetrix) Vex
ball whiffleball custom ball
b dia 7.2cm 10.16cm
b mtrl plastic foam
weight 25 grams 50 grams
goal loc central corner
goal dia 9" 9x22"
goal shp round triangle
goal H 30-39" 36-45"
goal o rotates fixed
goal d 0-6' 3-12'