Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

During a recent scrimmage our robot did an unplanned dismount from the tower. I am calling it a dismount and not a fall because the robot was not very high, and landed upright rather gracefully. It was almost worthy of style points. The problem that caused it has been corrected and we do not expect a similar occurrence. Just curious if anyone else had a fall or unplanned tumble during a practice climb?

I think one of our members may have caught this on video so we will try to get that available soon if we can.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

Ours did a backflip today when holding on to the bars level two and level 3, the operator hit the button to raise the hooks on level 3, instead of the ones on level 2. Fortunately no damage, and the issue has been fixed. We didn't have a full pyramid so the robot laid out across a back bar on our structure at the level 2 height. I have video, that I might post.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

Here's your video Tom!

Unplanned_Dismount

Tom

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

I wanted to let people know the rest of the story. This problem depicted in the video was fixed and this robot went on to perform perfectly at the Autodesk Oregon Regional, completing a 30 point climb in every single one of its competitions. This is contrary to what the announcer said at one point, after mistaking 997 for a different robot that missed one of its climb attempts.

In a week 2 event where a lot of more complex robots were still having reliability issues, that dependable climb alone was good enough to make it into the semifinals. All in all, a very respectful showing for a small robot that did not even have wheels.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

I did a very similar thing but I dropped our robot from the top level and landed right on the tower. Somehow we took minimal damage.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

190 had a unplanned dismount during a qualification match. They used steel cable in their arm, and when they started up on the 30 point bar one match, the cable split and the hook went flying and the rest of the robot dropped straight down and went thud.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

We had a dismount from the first bar in out match. They didn't get lined up quite right, so when we started to lift the hook just slipped off. The hook got bent, but we bent it back and reenforced it.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

Yeah, we like to put on a show :D.

The steel cable snapped while we were hanging from the third rung. This caused the arm (we call it the OSHA, Omni-Sloth Hook Arm) to unwind down until the arm reached its lower limit. The bracket that holds the hook onto the top of the OSHA is designed to be frangible in just such a case to avoid placing undue load onto any of the more sensitive parts of the climber. When it snapped, it shot the hook up into the air and caused us to fall down straight onto our wheels a good five feet or so.

After a checkup and quick fix in the pit, everything was back to normal within an hour.

Re: Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?
 

Wow, that was quite a drop. It is good to hear that it was not a catastrophic fall. Early in the season some posts were suggesting that many teams would have their day cut short by a fall from the pyramid, but I have not really seen that. However the prospect of such an event caused us to put a sturdy 2 inch foam pad on the bottom of our robot just in case. I suspect if it did fall in an actual competition it would not have been a serious problem. But I am also very happy we did not need to find out.