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Overview
Sir Launch-a-lot is built around a three-stage scoring system — intake, transfer, and shooter — with each stage operating independently while working together under match pressure. A dual-stage intake with active centering feeds a high-torque transfer that only engages when needed, which in turn loads a turret-mounted hooded flywheel shooter capable of aiming independent of the drivetrain.
Strengths
- +Dual-stage intake with vectored wheels and a conveyor chain keeps artifacts centered, cutting down on bounce-outs and misfeeds
- +Turret-mounted shooter aims independent of the drivetrain, enabling rapid, accurate successive shots without repositioning the robot
- +Each subsystem (intake, transfer, shooter) was designed and tested independently, so any one of them can be serviced or swapped without touching the rest
Tradeoffs
- –Turret and hooded shooter need precise hood-angle and RPM tuning, plus structural reinforcement, to stay accurate over repeated cycles
- –Actively-driven multi-stage intake and transfer draw more power than a simpler single-stage design
- –More moving subsystems means more failure points to tune, maintain, and diagnose during a competition day
Subsystem Breakdown
Drivetrain
The mobility base that carries the intake, transfer, and shooter around the field, giving the turret a stable platform to aim from regardless of where the robot is positioned.
Intake
A first stage quickly collects artifacts from the field, then a second stage pushes them toward the transfer. A center chain conveyor keeps artifacts moving forward while vectored wheels on either side actively center them for a clean handoff.
Transfer
An independently-powered, high-torque stage feeds artifacts from the intake into the shooter on demand. It replaced an earlier passive, gravity-fed "kicker" design once active control proved more repeatable under match conditions.
Shooter
A turret-mounted hooded flywheel aims horizontally without needing to rotate the whole robot, while an adjustable hood angle controls the launch arc — combining for fast, repeatable scoring at any position on the field.