Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Our team was thinking of the same thing; we decided to do pickup from both sides because it synergies greatly with a swerve (or any other omnidirectional) design. On a swerve especially, having the ability to pick up without turning saves valuable time on a match, and, assuming that your bot can get balls through its system quickly, can starve the opposing team of scoring objects.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

I was thinking of something similar to this too but our team opted to not have an omnidirectional drivetrain.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Our team is going double intake because we want to be that robot sitting in the key shooting balls like crazy. Having double intake will allow our partners to shoot balls near us and have ease at collecting them. We are also going wide tank to collect balls even quicker. Haha.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Oh ye of little faith in "adding complexity". You guys need to get out more and prototype it; the design itself isn't difficult with orthogonal conveyor belts. All of the complexity falls on the CAD mentor, and not it's in building a 2-sided conveyor but rather trying to figure out where the electronics board will go because the nice neat place that was there isn't there any more.

Deep breath, heavy sigh.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Yeah. With our design, we've ruled out any added complexity. In fact, it's a lot more efficient than our one-sided design, and actually GAVE US ROOM FOR AN ELECTRONICS BOARD! :D

Yes, I'm as shocked as you are here, I just got the CAD this morning

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

The hardest part is figuring out how to balance out c.g., but there are also other things to think about. We originally had an idea that battery would be on one side of the wide-drive bot and all motors would be on the other side. Now it looks like electronics and the battery will go on one side (to keep the 6AWG wire short) and ... who know what else on the other. Well maybe we want the battery and electronics on the same side, but not so close that someone accidentally knocks into something while changing the battery. Perhaps we'll put the bridge lowering device opposite the electronics and the battery for partial c.g. offset.

Yet if we put the electronics on one side and the motors on the other, won't we need large channels for all of the power cable runs? Well what if we put the electronics board vertically on the back? Then the drivers can't see how many balls they have when the robot faces the other way to score. So maybe we stick to the side.

What about both sides, and a split electronics board? Nope, can't do that because we promised ourselves it's been more of a nightmare than a blessing in the last 2 years. Still need a large wire channel and it's simply harder to figure out what wires go where. Keep everything on 1 board, or at least 1 assembly.

There are miles and miles of questions, decisions, and tradeoffs. Yet as we lay them out we're realizing that they aren't insurmountable or overwhelming, which means they're within our capabilities.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

We got our inspiration from team #118's 2006 robot.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Are you putting the electronics board on the edges of the robot, by any chance?

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

My team is planning on a block I design for the frame on omni wheels with both wide sides serving as intakes for a centrally located feeder. The two challenges we are currently facing (in order of difficulty) are center of gravity height and elec. board placement. We believe neither challenge to be insurmountable, and that the time saved during a match (1-5 seconds) is worth the trade off.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

Nope. It's all situated. PLUS, no weight distribution issues, so far it's mostly all symmetrical, and anything not symmetrical is countered be equal and opposite weight. I <3 our design. :D

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

I just wanted to let you know that your Mecanum wheels are placed in the drawing wrong. Not that it makes a difference in the computer but it will play a huge role when build in reality! If you don't know the proper way (which there is only one way) message me and i will explain it to you.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

We are also doing a double feeder. It will be quite a challange, but we are upt to it. Plus, our electrical lead is eager, though not thrilled, for the challange.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

The ability to drive backwards is a trainable skill, although we've included inversion buttons on our controls several times. It's more the thought that one side isn't the "front", but rather you can travel in any direction the robot is capable of (which, for most skid steer robots, is one of two directions plus rotation).

Last year, for example, we could do a full field run to the HP station "backwards", then invert and do the whole run "forwards" to score. If driven correctly, our "back" was almost always to the opposing team, we always backed through stuff and came at it head on, since it was just faster to do it that way.

Way back in 2006, we collected from one side and shot out the other. Even further back in 2001, we had a totally invertable (front/back) robot with a claw on both sides that could work either way.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

The wheel modules are a separate assembly that was just placed into another assembly 4 times.

Re: Picking up from both sides
 

How are you picking up balls?