Does your 06 robot have pneumatics?

[Arkorobotics]

Does your 06 robot have pneumatics?

[Simon Strauss]

no, we decided that this year with all the additional functions we wanted our bot to do and the mechanisms that go along with them, that it would be safer to cut off the Xlbs or so that go along with a pneumatics system than too much swiss cheesing or having to be picky about what we use so that we could still be withing the weight limit. also we couldn't see too much of a need for pneumatics because all the arm lifting and whatnot is for smaller distances this year so it can be completed with worm gears or other methods.

[Billfred]

Nope. Ignoring Bob's brief attempt at it, we've never used pneumatics on a FIRST robot for various reasons (weight, functionality, etc.).

[greencactus3]

Nope. Ignoring Bob's brief attempt at it, we've never used pneumatics on a FIRST robot for various reasons (weight, functionality, etc.).
really... we have never had a robot that didnt use pneumatics for its main functions.... until this year... where we might not use any at all. im still pushing for that one function i believe is better with pneumatics.

[sanddrag]

10 motors and two or three cylinders. :ahh: At least I don't think we need to compressor.

[DarkJedi613]

We're using them. We always do. :)

[Michael Corsetto]

We are using pneumatics this year. I would have preffered not to use any, but our drivetrain is making a two speed shifter, so they thought it necessary to use pneumatics. So based on that decision i used one pneumatic for the shooter just to keep things as light as possible.

Last year we originally had pneumatic pistons for the arm mechanism and the tetra grabber. But we replaced those parts with different mechanical parts and we went from 8 pounds overweight to 6 pounds under!

Mike C.

[Alekat]

Nope. Ignoring Bob's brief attempt at it, we've never used pneumatics on a FIRST robot for various reasons (weight, functionality, etc.).

Could you be more specific? I never thought about not using pneumatics.

[Pat234]

This year team 234 has worked especially hard to avoid pneumatic functions. The past two years we have had pneumatics give us serious function problems in 2004 and altogether cut off becuase of weight in 2005. So this year we decided not to use them at all and not deal with the hassle of problems during competition.

[Joe J.]

862's Icarus will be our first robot in the past 5 years NOT to use pnumatics, as a result as a result we are using more motors than on any other robot. We're planning on using those pnumatics for some thing else though... :D

[lukevanoort]

WE used pneumatics rookie year, 2001. Haven't even touched them since. Intrestingly this puts us in a excellent situation if we ever want to use them, having 5 unopened compressors, lots of solenoids, fittings, tubing, etc.

[greencactus3]

WE used pneumatics rookie year, 2001. Haven't even touched them since. Intrestingly this puts us in a excellent situation if we ever want to use them, having 5 unopened compressors, lots of solenoids, fittings, tubing, etc.
5unopened compressors??? and most likely 10 tanks!?!?!?
how can you resist using them for "projects" in the off season? you wanna sell me a couple of those for cheap? i doubt you'll ever use them as you can only use 1 per season.... well unless you break it.. which is unlikely.
wow.. i can not imagine having 5 boxes of unopened crates of pneumatic supplies... wow... :ahh:

[Rohan_DHS]

we're not using pneumatics for the simple reason that we dont need it, and whatever we need can be done with motors...and of course it adds a lot of un-necessarry mass.

[Elgin Clock]

Not yet, and maybe not this year for the first time in 4 years.

2006 is time to break the mold.
It's the year to focus on great coding instead of some pneumatic functionality.. ;)

[Wayne Doenges]

We have used pneumatics every year since 2001 (rookie year) and have had NO problems with them.
This year will no exception, except we will not be using the compressor. We will use both storage tanks and charge them before each match. We're using pneumatics to shift gears. We can get 40+ shifts from one charge.

[ForgottenSalad]

We most likley will be using a small pneumatic piston and two cylinders for a small job, but pending further tests it is unknown wether or not we will use the full system. (Compressor, etc...)

[Veselin Kolev]

We're only using two small .75" bore cylinders, 1/2" stroke, to shift our transmissions, at 30 psi. We're not using a compressor, and only one air tank. We dont need the weight, we just dont have unlimited room for electronics and stuff in our cassis.

[Freak999]

We only have 2 pneumatic cylinder for transmission shifters w/ Air Resivore.

[Dan Petrovic]

Since '03 and '04 we used pneumatics for our two speed transmissions.

'05 we originally used them for our manipluator but, for some reason, that didn't work so we took off the compressor all together. Even though it wasn't running it still held a purpose. It was deadweight and kept us from tipping!

This year we are using Pneumatics for our two speed transmissions and for feet to stabilize our robot while shooting.

[irishninja]

No. We decided at the beginning that we were going to try and build the robot without using pneumatics. We could have used them, but in only one or two areas, so we decided that it wouldn't be worth the weight.

[DarMagi]

pneumatic dump works beautifully =]

[Tim Delles]

Of course we did! Just have to wait to see her to find out where we used them.

[EricRobodox]

I think we actually cut a little wieght with our pneumatics. We have no compressor, but we will charge the tanks before each match. We have only one piston, but it is pushing a lot of wieght, so we used two tanks. Having a motor with chain and gears would be i think about the same, or even a littleh heavier than what our pneumatics weighs.

[ewankoff]

we didnt use pneumatics for weight and because last year we tried pneumatics and failed horribly. we used a small pnematic cylinder to grab and a larger one for the arm that was arguably the worst decission we made

if you go to the FIRST web site and enlarge the front page picture our robot is in the back left of the picture. it is struggling to do something I dont exactly remember that moment

[Cheuk Hung Ng]

No, we didn't use pneumatics this year because we didn't really need it with our robot design.

[CaseyKasem_1251]

We are using pneumatics this year for shifting and for use with part of our hopper. We have the compressor on the robot along with 1 storage tank. Cant wait to get up to UCF and see our gearboxes in action :D

[Tyler M.]

To my knowledge, we've never used ours. And we used to be team number 9, one of the originals. So I imagine they've stacked up. We get along just fine without 'em. Oh well :rolleyes:

[Jeff K.]

This year, we just used them for shifting. Our original design had them for use also as like, a gate, but due to weight, we had to scrap the shooter/feeder/gate. We also have the compressor onboard for weight.

[Pavan Dave]

My mentor said "Thank god you guys chose not to use pneumatics!".. not exact words..just a summary. ROFL. By former Controlls people I dont even want to use Pnedumatics..ive heard its a pain.

Pavan

[Kim Masi]

for the last few years, 177 has used pneumatics on their machine.

This year, we are using it for shifting and to load our ball launcher system.

I know in 2004 instead of using a compressor we created our own vacuum pump using pistons. it was a very interesting design.

[Rabbit222]

Yep 222 does. The only application we use them for is our two speed ball shifting transmissions this year.
Well I forgot one thing thanks to my comrade, team222badbrad, I forgot to mention about my own manipulator that flips our "tounge" that covers our front roller system for 1 pointers. Since I had no use for it at VCU, I totally forgot about it! :(

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I don't understand why people don't like pneumatics. They are by far the easiest to install and maintain source of mechanical energy on the robot.

[pyroslev]

We were considering at one point but when we tested the amount of power drain from everything else and the weight, the idea was scrapped.

[Danielle H]

This years 393 bot used a pneumatics system, but there wasn't an on-board air compressor.

We had two tanks inside the bot that we could fill with a portable air compressor by disconnecting one simple piece of tubing. We tested how many gear shifts we could pull off with the two tanks fully filled, and it was enough to get us through one match.

It seemed to be relatively successful.

[dubious elise]

We used our pneumatics system for shifting and turning. In the end, we realized that we didn't need the pneumatics system to help us turn, so now it helps us get off of ramps that we get hung up on.