Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

My team has a design for a "Y" shaped ball holder, launcher, and catcher, like "Draconis." We thought it would be a good idea to have a robot that could pick up from the front and back, so relaying balls between alliance members is easy, making turning less necessary for assists.

It is well known that an effective rolling ball pickup that has two rollers needs to have the top roller in front of the bottom roller in order to pick up this year's game ball with few or no problems.

Now, here's the issue with this: If you have a mechanism that has the top roller always out further than the bottom, flipping it over to pick up from the back will cause the bottom roller to stick out past the top roller, because of the switch between what is considered the "top" and "bottom" roller in your frame of reference, and can make the pick up less effective.

We solved this by having a structure attached to the "Y" that holds another piece of structure that slides inside it, so the length of both arms of the "Y" are variable. We have a design that allows the robot to have the top roller always stick out in front of the bottom, regardless of the "Y" mechanism picking up from the front or back. We did this by having the sliding structure attached to a specially shaped track that allows its length to change as the structure pivots, without using extra power, like motors and pneumatics, or anything complicated like gears or linkages. In fact, there are few moving parts, and it is strictly mechanical, but I won't let anyone know what it looks like just yet. I'll post about it later in the season.

Have any other teams considered doing front and back pick up, and have been successful? If so, I would like to know, and have you done something else other than a "Y" shaped mechanism to attempt a front/back pickup? I'm just asking if other people have tried or considered this, since I didn't find a thread about this, and i'm not asking for anyone to share their designs, but if you wish, feel free to do so.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I don't think that having a robot pick up from the front and back will make a huge difference. Turning 180 degrees could be just as fast. In my opinion I would rather have one intake that works really well, rather than have a way to pick up from both sides that is just average.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

This.

We designed our 2012 robot to pick up from both sides, and it was a useless functionality at best. Turning the robot is way faster than going for the other intake, and the drivers just like to think of one spot on the robot as an "intake zone." If you saw us play at Davis (and I'm sure you did), you'd have noticed that we had trouble picking up balls, and almost never used our back intake. Moral of the story? Intake speed and ease of alignment are a ton more important than a two sided intake. Save yourself some design complexity and go with a one sided intake.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Maybe the best use of a two-way ball pickup was 624 in 2012. They used it to have an auto mode where they shot balls retrieved from the co-op bridge in addition to their pre-loaded balls

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Why not just pick up balls from the back or have a rotating shooter?

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

not sure...I'm not on 624

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I know I was just pointing out that the other options that could have been done and thinking why they would have done it opposed to other ideas.

Overall there is no need for a way to pick up from both sides of a robot this year because it will be just as fast as making a 180 degree turn. Also do to limited space you couldn't have a shooter that could shoot with a huge distance. But this is just drawing from the ri3d revel videos.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Yes, one intake on each side.

#3ballorbust

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Our team spent a lot of time discussing this today, and reached the conclusion that having a double-sided pickup would cause more problems than it would solve for us. We are using a single roller arm to pick up balls (similar to Build Blitz team JVN), and the double sided intake (via flipping the arm to the other side) resulted in some weird geometry and problems storing the ball. We figured the small advantage gained by not having to turn around in some situations wasn't really worth the trade off (especially since we're a rookie team). Instead, we chose to place our pickup on the back of the robot, and the passer/shooter on the front to better facilitate passes.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Although I agree that turning could be just as fast, and if we find that a back/front pickup is not that effective, we can always opt for a simple forwards pickup. But the goal here is to make a front/back pickup that IS just as good as a one sided one.

The only thing I would worry about with turning, is that if a team was to spin around too fast in one place they may risk losing control of the ball due to centripetal force, and the ball may fly off on a tangent, and then again, maybe that could be a way to pass the ball if the drivers know how to do that. If there's a problem with ball control, obviously the solution is to make a ball holder that eliminates or reduces the risk of the ball falling out.

We like our mechanical arm length switcher idea, because it looks pretty neat so far, and we could possibly win an award for it, but if it proves to be more of a pain in the butt than we expected, and we pass the deadline set for finishing the mechanism prototype, then we move on to a simpler, one sided design. As of now, we find that the design is simple enough to not give us too many hassles.

We've had success building some crazier things in the past, like our 2012 robot "Odin" which could stack another robot on top of it to leave more room for triple balances, or make two robot balances easier by stacking, and using one robot to move and balance while the other sat top . It still could hold up to 3 balls, though usually two, was shorter than the bridge when the top doors were down, and when the top doors were open, we could still shoot fairly well, but we ended up being more of a point guard passing balls to teammates. We did get an award for that design, and the front/back pickup is way less complex than a one foot tall robot that stacks a robot on top, but still has a shooter, ball grabber, bridge manipulator, and bumper holder for the robot on top. If you have no idea what I'm talking, about, Team701TV on YouTube has our build season video on it. Here's a pretty popular video of our first successful unassisted stack in a competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qPtIfwSN6c

Anyway, my point is that I have the confidence in my team to build this system successfully, because it's definitely not the hardest thing we've ever done. My team is all about taking reasonable risks and making a unique robot, and sometimes that just makes the season more fun, challenging, interesting, and especially more fulfilling than it already is when the students succeed and also receive recognition for it.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

But do you really need a top and bottom roller?

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

It all depends on what you're trying to do. For us, we are trying to grab and lift the ball up with an arm mechanism to launch it, and pick up both sides so two rollers can be useful.

With a robot has a one roller over-the-bumper-intake, or most robot designs that I could think of for that matter, two rollers wouldn't be as necessary.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I don't think if you can solve this problem you should take on the complexity of a double sided intake. I know what you're trying to do and it seems tempting to pickup from both sides but I think once you abandon double sided pickup you'll find it's a lot easier to package everything anyway.

To answer your question: I bet a properly sized chain linkage could angle your claw such that it's pointing "down" on either side of the robot. Doesn't even need an extra motor if you do it right.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

We had a rotating turret, but we stopped using it by our first regional.

The double sided intake was extremely useful, and was one reason we were able to keep up with other top teams, as well as for a 4-ball autonomous and effective bridge tipper, we were able to advance to the semifinals at CMP and Number 2 seed at IRI. But there were a lot of game pieces in 2012, so being able to pickup from multiple sides was a bonus (I believe 1717 had a two-sided pickup as well, and it worked great for them too just as it did for us).

This year, you could make a case for a double sided pickup, but you could just turn around as well. Comes down to what your team wants to do and how you integrate them.

Also...I don't think I've seen many 2-roller intakes in any year? 2011 was the only year I saw some effective 2 roller systems, but 2012 and 2013 all featured 1-roller + ramp intakes.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Double Roller intakes have been around for quite a while. I can remember them in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Since 2008 and 2011 were the most prominent, and this game being like 2008, I see a lot of double rollers being utilized by teams.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Lots of discussion about moving intakes around to pick up from multiple sides...what about two intakes? It seems like it might be hard to package everything.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I see, before my time :)

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I would have to say that if a back/front intake requires an extra motor compared to one that is one sided, it isn't worth doing. Our design is simple (to my own standards, at least), easy to build, and requires no extra motors or power sources, so we want to give it a shot

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

The design we have planned takes up as much space as a single sided intake, but has a few extra pieces, of course. It shouldn't be hard to package at all. I don't know about how other teams are trying this, if they are, and if their design is difficult to make fit especially if their intakes are separate.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I've been working on a similar design concept (a well packaged claw on an arm pivoting about the center of the robot). What ultimately drove me away from using two rollers and thus picking up on both sides wasn't the extra motor requirement. For this design I wanted the rollers to articulate out of the way to allow for a clean fire from some spring force. With passive forks on the bottom instead of rollers, actuation for this motion became a lot simpler and lighter. If you're thinking something else entirely, then carry on.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

We do have a plan for our rollers to pivot out of the way for clean shot, so what you're thinking is what I'm thinking.. Even if a two roller back/front intake is not entirely practical, if my team can pull it off, and if it provides negligible problems and setbacks, i'd keep it for the fact that nobody else wanted to or couldn't do it, and therefore adding some cool factor.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Having two intakes could also come in handy if you are trying to catch the ball. We are working on something along these lines. How well it works out is yet to be seen.

I appluad/enjoy it when teams do out of the box things that may or may not be of great benifit. As long as you are learning and having fun then that is all that matters. IMO

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Exactly my opinion. I'd rather have my team have some challenging fun trying out stuff that few others are trying, because I find going the easier or more practical way a bit boring. I run into this all the time when I judge for FLL and VEX. Hardly any teams in these programs ever use sensors on their robots, because they tell me it's just easier that way. It may be true, but sensors are in every bit of technology we use daily, and when I judge teams that use sensors, and tried the harder way, I can tell that those students have learned more than the ones who tried the minimum, or the easier way.

I'm not trying to say that teams who may exclude difficult or unproven designs are not always learning as much as teams who go a different route, but the teams who dare to do something different will probably learn something that the cautious teams will not.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Having a way to pick up from both sides does have its advantages. I see what you are going for now. You are going to want a good balance between torque and speed in my opinion. Or you can keep your loader light enough so that you can have a reasonable amount of speed. I don't think it would be a good idea to have a way to pick up from both sides but have it take a while for it to get to each side. That's why I said why no just turn.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I'm gonna go ahead and post the unpopular opinion: why have a two sided pickup? There's only ever going to be one ball on the field, so long as you just keep track of it it really isn't necessary. Even if you're worried about the rebound, just have the robot turn 180 degrees be part of the shoot sequence. It's just gonna add more complication and an ounce more flair to teams when they try to appeal to scouters.

All in all, personally not worth it.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Not an unpopular opinion. That's probably the majority opinion, actually, it's much simpler for most teams.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

Just an idea: build an intake on one side, and spend the same time you would have taken to build a double sided intake, practicing.

Again just pure opinion, but I think we will see good robots with lots of practice beat amazing robots with little practice.

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

I understand where you're coming from, and the amount of practice a team has determines the robot's performance, but we plan on building two robots like we have our past two seasons anyway, so we have all the time after build season to practice our drive team too. As long as I am their drive team mentor, I will always assure that both our drive teams have adequate practice to perform above the standard.

And if we don't build a second robot, well, let's just do everything to make sure two get built. :)

Re: Forwards and Backwards Ball Pickup
 

We have a tried and true system for having speed AND torque without compromising either. We call it the "battle axes" because they are arcs whose center points are on the axis of rotation, and have chain along the arc length, with a sprocket rotating on a motor mounted on the arm. It's basically a rack and pinion system, but curved. We put this on our 2013 robot last year since we had a long arm that not only held all four disks in a line, but also had two 6" AM performane wheels at the very end for shooting. This is a pic of what they look like.


http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img...16ffd890_l.jpg

The diameter is about a foot, so it's like being able to drive the arm with a 12" sprocket , and only using 2 FP motors.


We intend on using this type of system again this year for a full rotation. Our heavy arm last year took about a second to get from down to top position, and we plan on having the same success with it this year. Turning around and rotating the arm should both take about the same amount of time.

The big advantage I forgot to mention is that during autonomous mode, we will be able to grab balls from behind us without turning, in the likely event that a robot has an unreliable, ineffective, or no autonomous mode. Just have the ball touch the other robot, and have the ball right behind our robot, and have programs for one two, or all three ball autonomous modes. If an alliance member is a goalie, they can place the ball behind us when it's in between the truss and the zone line, and we will never have to remove a ball from the beginning of the match.

My team would not prefer to turn around during auto, but rather go forwards and back, and reduce the chance of bumping into an alliance partner during auto if anything goes wrong during this period of the match.