Re: Unique robot design?
 

Pneumatic extenders maybe? :rolleyes: ;)

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We'll post pictures in the coming weeks.:P

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Rotation about the W-axis?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I think this year you will see more robot variation than in any prior year.

Its going to be crazy.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

There is nothing in the rules about extending in to the W area that the other side of the field occupies . . .

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I could see a robot that was entirely a mechanism to grab containers from the center being very popular at the championship (if they can get there!). If it always won the center step race, or would always have enough force to pull the containers to their side, it would be able to cap the maximum stack score of any alliance significantly lower than I expect competitive alliances to score.

A robot built to do only this is attainable for a decent number of teams, but I don't know how many teams will be crazy enough to try it.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I don't trust any robot that can "get all four recycling bins in the center before anybody on the other side can get one." There will be very strong robots that can very quickly - during autonomous - get one recycling bin off the step. To think that you can get four before anybody else could get one is foolish.... With that thought, what happens if one of the four bins you are clamped onto during autonomous gets grabbed by a strong robot that can put all it's "pull" into that one recycling bin - and has an advantageous center of gravity? I can visualize the "4-bin grabber" getting yanked right over the step and out of commission for the entire match. And, it would be penalized with a foul....

I'd have to really see such a robot perform consistently before wanting to go into eliminations in St. Louis with it as an alliance member.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I really don't see much reason for secrecy at this point... There will be no defense this year, so nobody can plan strategies to stop you... If you have a brilliant idea and somebody tries to mimic you at this point, they are already so far behind that they are not likely a threat to be better than you - and could probably use some help.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I don't want to post our design yet just because I don't want to post something that doesn't work, and we're still ironing out the bugs. But I think we have a fairly unique concept. I wouldn't be surprised to see a half dozen other teams do it, but it should stand out. Whether it stands out because it's an unnecessary gimmick, or because it's a novel solution to scoring in this year's game, remains to be seen. We have no frame cutout and it has nothing to do with the center bins.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I was surprised to find out that we ended up at the same design concept as the Bitbuckets (4183) without collaborating on anything. One end of the robot harvests totes off the floor and holds them in a stack, with each tote held by the lip on it's wide side. On the other end is an elevator for dealing with the recycle bin. Ours has a small 4-bar linkage on the end of the elevator to get to the maximum height, not sure if they're doing the same with that detail.

It's neat to compare how the same robot design can be built with different resources.

Our claw design is further along than our stacker design:


Their stacker design is further along than their claw design:



There's going to be lots of different robots this year, should be fun to check them all out! Might be a slightly more boring year for spectating, but running around in the pits and looking at designs will be lots of fun.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Reasons to keep secrets still exist, including the "it doesn't work yet" reason, the "we don't want anyone to iterate something that will score as much as we can" reason, and the "we want to surprise you, just for fun" reason. I always love the reveal videos, too.

From all the discussion I've seen so far, I think 1339 has one very common idea, one rare idea, and one that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else, yet. I look forward to finding out if other teams thought of it too, or passed it by.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I do not recall anything in the rules disallowing movement outside 3 dimensional space.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Shhhh, you are ruining our plan to build the Tardis!

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Our robot?

Return of the flappers... :yikes: