Hi!

What about having a weight that the solenoid holds up and allows to drop, kicking the ball, not sure how heavy it'd have to be or anything, just throwing possible ideas out there (and you may have requirements that don't allow that)

What about using mechanical advantage to increase the speed of the blow delivered to the ball.  If the solenoid were attached to the shorter side of a pivoting arm (a lever), then the longer free end of that arm were used to impact the ball, you might get better kicking distance because of the increased speed. 

Good ideas both, but unfortunately i can't really use any of them as i have a weight and a size limit, i could only maybe put some-sort of metal part on the end of the solenoid to increase the contact with the ball , but even then i wouldn't get a much better shot.
I bought all the required items to test the circuit i posted in my previous comment.
Any other advise and suggestion on how to get a better step-up circuit is welcome!

Thanks
Regards

Jak24

Hi!

In the past few weeks i have been experimenting with my solenoid:
http://www.electromechanicsonline.com/product.asp?pid=24
12v (10% duty cycle)
I need this solenoid to kick a roughly ~250gram 75mm radius ball for 2 meters (without the ball slowing down)
Because it was rated to be 12v i first used it with a 12v ni-hm battery and activated the solenoid with a relay , with which i could shoot the ball 50cm (barely).
After a while i got tired of only getting a small kick like that, so i got busy experimenting,
first i tried it with 18 volt (one 12v and one 6v battery pack)  i got bit better kick (60cm) with 24v(2 x 12v battery packs) i got ~70cm  and with
36 volt (2 x 12v and 2 x 6v battery packs) got almost 1 meter,
i could go on and on adding battery cells but due to the weight issue i couldn't really make that work, so i am now thinking of a way to build
a step-up circiut to charge a capacitor and then use that to give the solenoid 300+ volts.
as i figure that voltage should be sufficient, so after i did some research i fount this circuit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58860084@N03/5395710031/ (inverter)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58860084@N03/5396308346/ (ac-to dc converter)
The 230v output (inverter) would go to the IN (ac to dc converter) and hopefully i will get enough power to charge the capacitor and then get
a better kick from the solenoid.
Does anyone know if this circuit would work? or are there any other alternatives to get a better kick from a solenoid?
Any advise is appreciated .

Regards
Jak24

Hi!

I would like to learn more about your latest robots as your website:
http://complubot.educa.madrid.org/inicio.php?seccion=principal
doesn't seem to have the information about your latest robot smiley-razz

You can find  complete information on a simple soccer  robot with Arduino here http://complubot.educa.madrid.org/proyectos/ardusoccerbot/ardusoccerbot_index.php 

yes i have seen that tutorial , but still if you ever get the time to update your website with information about your new robots, please inform me.

Have you  any information about your robots on  your site?

Unfortunately  my website is being built right now, and since i am getting ready for robocup the website will probably only be online after robocup.
Anyway, i would like to ask you some questions about your latest robots, i would be very grateful if you could answer them:
What kind of motor did you use, as maxon has quite a variety of motors (what voltage, what gearbox/encoder etc...)
Why did you require 4 arduino's on your robot, as atleast for me 1 arduino mega is quite enough.
And finally what kind of kicker(solenoid) did you use for kicking the ball, and what kind of step-up(dc to dc) converter circuit did yo use to power the solenoid?

Thanks
Regards

Jak24

HI!

Fantastic, what  is your team name?, Soccer  A Soccer B, primary,  secondary?

i am in soccer A primary , my team name is amini, but this year we are changing it to hunrobot,
we have been to 2 robocups (09, 10) and plan on going to Istanbul, but this year I am planning to build
brand new and highly improved robots.

No,  my students use 4  x 4.5W motors

 
I'm guessing they are maxonmotors as almost everyone uses them ( i am also using maxon's, but they are 15W each)
I would like to learn more about your latest robots as your website:
http://complubot.educa.madrid.org/inicio.php?seccion=principal
doesn't seem to have the information about your latest robot


Regards

Jak24

HI!

Nice robots,
I am also a Robocup Junior competitor,
And i am also using arduino as my processor although i am only using 1 arduino mega,
I hope to make robots as good as yours someday xD.

Not really, Complubot robots have a maximum speed of 1m / s (for now) and the German team's robots TnT exceed 2m / s. The motor power is also different: 18W (Complubot) vs 150W (TnT). I think the biggest difference is the stability of the robots (fewer errors) and how to play (algorithms).

Perhaps the simplicity of the Arduino platform allows young students to work on other things 

Are you motors 18w per motor? or 18w all motors together ,and team TNT's robots had 3x 12w motors not 150w, here is the link proving that:
http://tnt-robotik.de/Feldspieler-2010.html
and team TNT also used a coprocessor besides the blackfin.
also, how did you interface 4 arduino's ?

Regards

Jak24

Hi !

How can I connect four srf08 sensors to and arduino mega,
the following link only shows how to connect 1 ,
http://www.robot-electronics.co.uk/files/srf08.pde  (example)
http://www.robot-electronics.co.uk/htm/srf08tech.html (technical data)
and i don't know how to change the addresses of the ultrasonics.
If possible please post code, to help me solve my problem.

Thanks
Regards

Jak24

http://www.surveyor.com/blackfin/  

HI!

I am currently working on a project that uses object tracking/ avoiding and for this i would like to use a camera that does the processing it self as my ardiuno mega does not have the power to do the processing.
And the camera that i found the most possible for the task was the blackfin camera, but unfortunately i couldn't fin any libraries/ tutorials for the ardiuno, are there any tutorial/libraries for the blackfin or are there only ones for the cmucam and avr cam?

Regards

Jak24