T-Fling, Ratchet, Choo-choo, or is it something else?
Most likely T-fling or choo choo, since they are capable of reloading fast and shooting decent consistently.
Ratchet can shoot just as consistently/ quickly. It depends on the case however as ratchet is much easier to run out of a PTO and therefore is used far more commonly on top bots.
On many ratchet bots, such as the hero bot, the ratchet will take about 3 seconds to reload, versus this speed of a choo choo: (About 1.5 Seconds). As you may know already, in a vex iq match, every second counts.
Choo Choo: (1.5 secs)
Ratchet: (About 3 Secs)
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The herobot wasn’t my example, top bots were. The herobot uses a 2 motor 1:1 ratchet which is not designed with the same efficiency as a well designed choo-choo. However for better comparison look to a 4 motor PTO bot, something that a choo-choo mechanism can almost not be apart of due to its weight/spacial demands. Ratchets are just as good if not BETTER in every aspect this year and almost every high performing team uses it. The only top teams I haven’t seen use it run a 2 motor drive with a 1 motor t-fling and 3 motor intake but at that point a 3 motor PTO is just more worth it imo and it gives you a 3 motor drive so it also increases drive speed.
Yes, although a PTO ratchet bot will have the ability to reset faster than the normal 1:1 herobot setup, the ratchet has other kinds of flaws. One of which includes when a lowering ratchet provides more force to one side than the other. This causes the catapult to bend in a way that shouldn’t be possible. This is a common issue, and I have seen it happen on multiple occasions, on other robots at other competitions, even when both ends of the ratchet are perfectly centered. The ChooChoo or T-Fling may have this problem as well, but it will only happen on these types of catapults if they were improperly tuned/annexed to the robot.
One other flaw might include an enormous amount of tension forced to be held through one little string. Although the vex ratchet strings are very strong, attempting to put all tension through one connection point may completely shatter parts on the lower part of the catapult mechanism on some weaker robots. It is also to the point where some plastic pieces will literally break in half, as well as metal shafts being bent. (This is why we switched from ratchet to ChooChoo). On a choo-choo or T-fling, you are dividing that tension among two connection points, allowing for a more reliable robot with less occasions of breaking the shooting mechanism.
In pitching in, I saw many choo-choos break. I have yet to see a ratchet (although I have only been around well built ones) break any piece of plastic this year. I’m a little confused about the unequal force part as this is not an issue as long as you center the ratchet. You have also ignored the fact that running choo-choo or T-Fling takes away 1 motor from your robot. Ratchets have the same speeds/ consistency and are able to be PTOed out of almost any kind of Pnuematic/Diff PTO, giving you basically more motors. I think (and the usage stats by almost every top team [only exceptions of the top of my head are 6699Ws old bot, Ark Dynamics on yt, and a pretty decent reveal that came out today on yt I think the channel was Ghostriders] Which is 3 out of MANY incredible robots. Ratchet is simply better this year for it’s versatility in PTO and it’s shooting ability which when tuned well is on par with choo-choo. I would say T-fling is better than choo-choo this year as well.
I chose T-fling because I didn’t have space for the ratchet, and I broke 9 parts (pins, and beams) because of it. Use ratchet whenever possible.
As for the ChooChoos breaking in pitching in, as I stated earlier, choochoos will only break if poorly constructed. This is when the gears connected to the lowering mechanism are annexed pointing at different directions. This causes one side of the catapult to shoot before the other, which has a high chance of failing the catapult. But, this will ONLY happen when the ChooChoo is poorly constructed, so when you saw many ChooChoos break at pitching in, all of these were most likely poorly constructed.
As for the plastic piece breaking part; I have no idea if any other teams have experienced this, but we surely have.
PTO; As for the PTO, I am confident that you could squeeze a PTO into some kind of choo-choo bot. For example, on our bot, we had a significant amount of space below the ChooChoo, surely enough for a PTO. Once built, you could connect the PTO to the input shaft via chain and sprockets. Same goes for the intake on either side.
And finally, as for the “low” usage of ChooChoos, I believe you are forgetting about the Parallax bot’s simplest form, which is Ben lipper’s version. This one is reliable and fast, and it alone scores up to 220 in skills, and possibly 300+ with the addition that 6699 used to gain #1 in world.
Ben Lipper is not a top team. Yes 220 skills is a reasonably decent score but Ben Lipper intentionally does not use Pnuematics so therefore no PTO. 6699W Achieved that score with rolling, and while it is good it could easily be beaten with a ratchet bot and rolling now.
The same is true for ratchets.
At the end of the day the ratchet is simply better and used more because using it is literally gaining basically a full motor.
As for a choo-choo PTO, I would love to see an efficient one, please build it!
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And, any of these catapults will perform strongly, as long as they were built correctly. As far as I can tell, it will not matter too much, as long as you build it right and are able to squeeze a PTO somewhere in there.
Otherwise, @PitchingInW, happy early anniversary! I saw that you joined last year on may 4!