148's "secret weapon"
 

For those of you who watched Alamo and got to see 148's "secret weapon", what are your thoughts on this? How can it be made better?

I think if you had one on either side of the bridge, then you can be a lot more effective with it.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

care to elaborate on what this secret weapon was? :)

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

A pneumatic-powered arm that came down over their bumpers and touched the ground below the bridge, not only lifting them up, but also stabilizing the bridge by eliminating the rocking back and forth to the side it was on.

I'm designing one as I post this. :) Thanks 148!

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

A vertical bar that extends down inside the perimeter. When balancing with three robots, 148 would hang off the edge. The "Stinger" as it's been dubbed would then extend downward to stabilize the bridge, then once the bridge levels it would be retracted. This way, three wide config. bots could balance. It removes the need to drive the robot to compensate for bridge wiggling, but only works with three even weighted robots.

It's genius and we are looking into how we can create our own.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

I predict we'll see very few 3-bot balances that aren't mechanically assisted.

At SPAM, we use our flipper for this as seen at 0:40 of this video.

I can't wait to see what others have come up with to help them balance!

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

Since we've added an aluminum cannon collar to the tip of our cannon, as well as a dynamic aluminum barrel extension, we're able to fine-tune the balancing of the bridge with subtle cannon movements.

Our two wheel drive system allows our rear end to hang off the bridge, leaving 21'' of space for two other bots on our alliance.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

We've dubbed ours the Mach 5 option or the Magic jacks. There is a key thing that can be changed to make it better IMHO but I'm not telling at this point. If you go to our website you can see them in some of the pictures, just to prove that we aren't copying we put it in the bag. You'll find the link in my siganture.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

I'm sorry, two wheels drive system? Do you mean two wheels on each side, totaling up to four wheels, or only two wheels on your robot total? :confused:

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

I don't know about @DominickC, but we're hopeful our two-wheel-total drive system will allow us to take up minimal space in the three-bot balancing challenge!

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

does anyone have a video or pic of 148's secret weapon? or even a link to somewhere i can see it.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

Really surprised not more teams are doing this.

Didn't anyone research 2001?

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

Showed a video of 192 to 1712 during the first week of the season. We ultimately didn't use it, but I too am surprised its not more common.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

The Killer Bee's (33) had something similar to this as scene here except their's comes out of their frame and seems to be used to balance 2 easily instead of 3. I expect to see a lot more of these in the coming weeks as it does not seem to be overly difficult to make as long as you have the package space and weight. Kinda like the ramp minibots from last year spreading like wildfire.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

We considered it, ultimately decided against it.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

You could improve this design in code. It's a little dirty, but hey, creative :D
It is similar to electronically assisted minibot deployment last year.

The Robowranglers match where they fell off the bridge proved that you only need to be balanced at the end of the match (within the allowance). The strategy goes like this: You get all three robots on the bridge and assist the Balanchine using the pneumatic stinger. The stinger would be long enough so that it would fully balance the bridge. Just before the match ends, the robot code retracts it. Because everything with mass has inertia, it will take the bridge a certain amount of time to tip past the point that it is considered "balanced". If they fall after the match ends, then it doesn't matter.

This way, as long as the robots are close enough to balanced, they will be able to score bridge points.

Hopefully this made sense :P

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

You cant do that. Because of the rules about bumpers - you can only extend something below your robot if your bumpers are at minimum height and even then you can only extend 3 inches down. This is why 148 didnt have theirs always touching the ground.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

Please quote the rules that don't allow you to do this.

As far as this being allowed section 2.26 of the manual says that the bridges are 12 inches off the ground (measured from the top). Basic arithmetic dictates that 12inches is smaller than the 14 that you are allowed to extend from your frame perimeter by rule <R02>.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

FYP. See [G37].

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

This really isn't in the spirit of FIRST...that is...FIRST's ruling.

Way to penalize an innovative team. Not the first time FIRST has really dropped the ball.

A direct question about this was asked in the Q&A and completely ignored.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

To answer questions regarding our drive train - two very large wheels located in the center of gravity of our bot. We've got three small wheels forward and back of both wheels - totaling to 12 small wheels - to assist in keeping us from rocking back and forth on the floor and aid in getting over the barrier. When on the bridge, we can hang our rear end all the way up to our CG, right where our two main wheels are. We can take up as little as 21''.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

Doesn't that mean you always measure bumper height from the bridge, as long as you are not touching the floor and it doesn't matter if you are touching both the bridge and floor since you would be in a transitory state between the bridge and the floor?

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

The reason the Robowranglers alliance scored in that case was due to the fact that a robot from the opposing alliance touched them during the attempt and thus they received the balancing score.

For those of you who were looking for our magic jacks it looks like only 2 of you found the post so here is a hint it's in the post titled Bag Day Act III.

Re: 148's "secret weapon"
 

That happened in F-1. I believe he's talking about F-3, where the Robowranglers spent 40 seconds trying to get 3 robots balanced when they only needed 2 to win. They failed several times, and eventually ended up tipping on their back in the last 5 or so sections and thereby losing the match and the regional.