Recycling Container Placement
 

I have a Question and i want to see your opinions
How long do you think it will take to place a Recycling Container on a stack of 6 Totes?
I'm not looking for one straight answer but your general opinion.
Thanks for the help ::safety::

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

I guess that depends on which team is doing it? It will depend on the robot design, and operator skill. We're hoping to make it about a ten second process, but then again we're not intending to place a container on a stack of 6 totes...only a stack of 5, at most. 4, more often.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

It will also depend on the situation... Making a stack from the landfill will likely take a little longer than from the loading station...

Under ideal conditions (our autonomous went perfectly, we quickly grab a container, run over to the feeder station, our intake deals perfectly with the tumbling totes and we line up ideally in the scoring zone on our first attempt, we could stack five and a container in 15 seconds.

Of course:
1) Rarely do things work out perfectly.
2) Right now, we only have a "theoretical" robot.... Or, perhaps I should say, "several parts of a 'theoretical' robot..." The other parts are in the mail - unless they are on back-order.....

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

If I remember correctly 6 totes is 78 inches and the max robot height is also 78 inches so I believe you have to place a container on before you stack 6 totes.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

For the average robot, about a 20-30 seconds with high chance of fail. For top tier teams, 5-10 seconds with very little chance of failure.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

Actually, each tote is 12.1 inches tall, according to the manual.

12.1 * 6 = 72.6

That leaves your robot 78 - 72.6 = 5.4 inches.

Of course, the scoring platform is 2 inches tall...so... 3.4 inches.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

When you stack totes they mat sit inside of each other, and I think each tote is around 11.875 tall.

12.1 + 5 * 11.875 = 71.475

That leaves your robot 78 - 71.475 = 6.525 inches, or 4.525 when taking into account the scoring platform.

Note: I am not certain the distance from the bottom to the top of the lid is 11.875, please verify if you will be using my math.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

Well that makes it even easier...

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

The Scoring Platform doesn't count towards total robot height, so you can build a robot 78'' tall and still drive on the scoring platform. Having said that lifting a bin ~5'' from the bottom doesn't seem feasible for most teams, I just can't see it being stable enough once 8' in the air.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

We got our first container mechanism prototyped last night, and we'll make some changes to see if we can make it more stable when grasping at the bottom of the container. It looks like it will almost work with what we have already. Bonus, it will also work on totes, and we can probably use it (by adding another degree of freedom, which is also needed to meet size requirements) to pick up tipped containers.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

But if you're wanting to work with litter, you will need to place the litter before you stack.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

We measured a nested stack of 6 and it came out at almost exactly 72 inches - you have 6 inches to work with or 4 if you take into account the scoring platform.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

It all depends on the strength and speed of your motors/pneumatics that you use, how many you use, and how well you are lined up with the stack.

Re: Recycling Container Placement
 

I dont expect to see a lot of teams doing that.

I think it would be easier to make a 4 tote stack, then put a 2 tote bin stack on top (or other variations).

One of the things I like about this years game is working out the effort required/center of gravity issues.