Invertible bots

[Racer26]

OK, So early in build season there were a number of discussions about invertible robots, and the stipulations that entailed (26" height, etc), and Q&A questions and all sorts of stuff. Now that people are posting pics of completed bots I've yet to see one invertible robot. Did everyone just decide it wasn't worth the effort or what?

[Ken Streeter]

OK, So early in build season there were a number of discussions about invertible robots, and the stipulations that entailed (26" height, etc), and Q&A questions and all sorts of stuff. Now that people are posting pics of completed bots I've yet to see one invertible robot. Did everyone just decide it wasn't worth the effort or what?

1519 had seriously considered building a "flop bot" that would be equally happy upside down as right-side up. However, the combined effect of a number of rules made it very difficult to design a robot which would satisfy all the needed rules while in either orientation. The big "show stopper" for us, though, was that the bumper zone (so that it would handle the same right-side-up and up-side-down) all the way around the robot meant that a robot with the CG centered up at the middle of the bumper zone would actually be likely to get stuck on its side if it fell over sideways.

As a result, we decided that it would be best to simply design a robot with as low of a CG as possible to keep it right-side up so that it didn't have to work upside down. That's the path we ended up taking, although we were very tempted to try the more innovative "flop-bot." I hope there's at least a few teams out there that decided to try it anyway!

[dtengineering]

We went, instead, for a non-invertible 'bot. By having a very low centre of gravity, and using hockey sticks to form a "roll bar" there are only two "stable configurations" for our robot. One is on its wheels. The other is... well... sufficiently unlikely that I'm not too worried about it happening.

Much like a lifeboat, we're self-righting... well... unless we manage some weird end-over-end flip, and if we do, then we'll make a highlight reel for sure!

Jason