Unique robot design?
 

I feel like many teams have almost the same robot design this year: meaning that the chassis is designed so that the robot can take 'in' the totes. Does any team have a unique robot design or strategy? I believe our robot is a little different from the common dedign(its not fully built yet so i cant show you how it looks like). Pictures would be great!

Re: Unique robot design?
 

You can't make a post like that, and not include pictures or drawings of your robot design!

:yikes:

I think we will see a whole bunch of unique robot designs over the next ten days.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

You'll find plenty of people eager to share their unique designs in about two weeks. Until then I doubt you'll get much.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Right, we all will be presenting robots in about 10 days!
I asked that just because I didn't see what kind of team could get a remarkably high score. The field is separated this year and it's a totally different game from the others. The amount of score a robot can get is in a way limited(because of # of totes and those)…

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I feel like the two different designs this year are going to be able to lift the totes up on the outside of your robot or lift them up in the inside of your robot

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I think that the highest scoring robots are going to be the ones that can move fast enough to complete a stacked tote set in autonomous, because that means that they are efficient and good at what they do.

Pair a robot that can do this with another that can get a noodle and put it on top of the stack, and we could have a high scoring match... very high scoring if the other robot can stack well too.

The highest score an alliance can get is 433. As Calculated in the document.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I think this year will be a year with more variation than typical. Yes, there will be a lot of elevators and those will certainly share a number of similarities, but after that, the sky's the limit.

There will be Double Stackers and there will be Stack On Stacks Stackers. There will be Landfill Munchers and Loading Station Loiterers.

And that is before we've even started talking Cans. Upright Cans Only Machines will be quite different from Knocked Over Can Machines which will be different from Step Can Grabber Machines.

Then there are noodles? There will be machines that are Noodle-Ignorers and machines that are Noodle-Centric.

Also, lets not forget that some teams will design in mechanisms for knocking over stacks while making it look like an accident for when they need their alliance partners to fall in the rankings. Those are going to be crazy looking rigs ;-) (no, no, no... ...just kidding).

Then there is the whole constrained Transport Configuration vs. virtually unlimited Competition Size. Not since bumpers rules effectively made "The Big Flop" illegal (I'm looking at YOU, Bill Beatty ;-) will we have robots with such imposing wheel bases driving on the Carpet Fields of FIRST.

Then there is the whole crazy (but maybe crazy like a fox) idea of I'm-building-for-Einstein-and-I-don't-care-if-I-rank-dead-last-during-the-qualifiers Strategy (cough, cough, simultaneous 4 can auton grab, cough, cough)*

Bottom line. I think this year will be a better than typical year for robot variety.

I will close with this. I can't/won't share the Overclocked 2015 Robot just yet, but I will say that we've nick named her "Scorpion" and she's worthy of the name.

Cheers,
Dr. Joe J.

*don't be a hater. I haven't let any cats out of any bags. With 1000's of FRC teams do you think your team was the ONLY team that thought long and hard about that idea? I myself stared long and hard into that abyss before shrinking back in horror (the horror, the long spindly, almost certainly rickety horror).

P.S. This is a very tongue in cheek reply. Don't take this too seriously. Lighten up. Really. JJ

Re: Unique robot design?
 

What do you consider to be a remarkably high score? We intend to score around 100 points per match. Would that be high, average, or low?

I agree I feel as if everyone is either using a elevator with acrylic tabs or an elevator with a pheumatic squeezing arm. I think the robots who do great are the ones who are different for instance I saw one bot that is a conveyer belt. I'm still interested in what 254 has done to pick up noodles as that's the one game peice I truly ignored.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

While I do feel that there will be a large number of robots that are very similar this year, I expect we will also see some very out-of-the box designs that could get pretty complex. We still have yet to see much from the top-tier teams, and I'm willing to bet many of them will have some pretty unique designs.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We haven't seen many recycling container bots posted yet.

There are at least a few of us building arms for that purpose.
Video and blog

There are going to be some amazingly unique robots this year. I can't wait to see what some of the historically creative teams come up with. (67, 118, 190, 469, and many others)

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Personally I am waiting to see the CheesyOctopus: an 8 armed robot that can grab 4 cans from the step and make a stacked tote set and still have one arm for hitting walls.

During Teleop I imagine said CheesyOctopus will launch no less than 4 tethered quadcopters to gather all the totes from both alliance areas and score over 1000 points.

-matto-

Re: Unique robot design?
 

One possibility that people haven't mentioned here is the multi-bot (besides the Octo-254 previously mentioned). It is very possible to have 2 separate devices connect with a tether working together to either double stack or one stacks totes and the other tops off with containers. This sort of design is either going to take the world by storm or crash and burn. No in betweens for that design in my opinion.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We are planning to make our robot a hybrid robot with a removable 'claw' to switch between our tote claw and container claw depending on our alliance partners.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

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:

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Well lets just say we got an outside the box design for real this year very unique testing in progress teaser pic to come shortly.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Yup. Same thing. But lifted by winch, not pneumatics.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

It would be interesting and educational if later in the season, say after the last regionals/districts, teams would post information on stuff they tried but could not get to work.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

It'd be more interesting if teams posted stuff they were trying during the design phase; you'd get much better feedback and optimize the design faster. I've seen a few cases where designs we were working on were posted on CD and people jumped on them to find potential issues; that helped us build a better robot.

I really can't see any negatives to posting design concepts at this point in the season. Think on this: If the Cheesy Poofs posted a complete render of their robot design right now, would you honestly scrap your current design after 5 weeks of work and start over with this new info?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Thanks for keeping up this fight, I've been championing this idea for while now and it hasn't gained much traction. However to your 2nd point, I get why some teams don't post, however a far greater number of teams should post since the benefits to them out weight the risks. Cheeeh Poofs don't need feedback from the community to ensure solid designs, they push the envolope so far that only a handful of people could help them in most cases and there are other teams like that (the ones everyone can named and are surprised when they don't win their division). For all other teams I don't see how posting doesn't help them and others. I don't get the idea of not wanting to post unfinished designs, they show the process and teams can learn from it.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Ours is kind of unique. It may or may not work very well. We'll see.



We should have posted the design a lot sooner, but we didn't really have it designed all the way.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Our robot has a lead screw-powered lifting mechanism with attachments on the front to grab totes and containers. This video shows the system articulating up and down:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v...type=2&theater

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I am in agreement with this and would prefer this. The timing I suggested was selected such that more teams would be likely to feel comfortable posting their ideas.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I'd be more than happy to post about our process after the season. Feel free to bug me via PM if I don't follow through; I was never big on secrecy.

This is stuff we used to do and honestly the biggest reason I haven't lately is just because I'm too busy building and working to document and post everything for Chief Delphi. I've been online less than 10 times this build season. I have no delusions of being "good enough" where staying secret with what we do is really a competitive advantage. I also haven't cleared it with the team and don't want to step on any toes, so at this point I'll just wait the few days it'll take to make it work.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I would certainly consider a re-iterated design based on a post from 254 or 1114, for example, if they were inclined to post their work even this late in the game.

I respect the teams posting here that want to open up the design process. Spectrum has been especially kind in their approach to the build season. And I'm not interested in being secretive for my team; we have little to gain from it, other than a bit of fun, and I doubt many teams would be looking at our design for guidance. But I also respect that some teams like to keep the element of surprise. It is one of our annual highlights as a team to watch and participate in the reveal videos.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Hoping I have figured out how to share this. This is one of our special features. We plan on using this to clear out the landfill in autonomous or the early game. It's based on something many of you are familiar with this time of year: a hydrolic (in this case pneumatic) snowplow.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

That looks pretty slick. Has it been more effective in breaking up the totes than a straight blade? Also, I think you might have an r67-b issue.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

You're right. We're a step or two away from full compliance at this point. Thanks for pointing it out and for the complement. The pneumatics allow us to have a straight blade on either side without compromising on size restrictions.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Your pneumatic set up reminds me of our intake. They look like mandibles and retract and expand using pneumatics that translate motion via a "Y" shaped linkage. We might be able to clear mid field with our system in a similar way as well, with some experimentation.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

You mean like this?

You know you guys are one of our "hero" teams, right? After 2013, our goal was to get up to your level.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Hero team? You flatter me, sir. :) We just do our best.

I also see some carbon fiber on your robot.

We may incorporate carbon fiber, but at this point in the season, we may not. We didn't make use of carbon fiber last year either. If we're struggling on weight, some carbon fiber parts may need to be made.

Our intake is like this!
See Attached:

Robot #3 is on its way!

Re: Unique robot design?
 

That looks really sweet. I see that you guys either shortened or lengthened your wheelbase in your second iteration (I'm guessing the longer one is the newer one). You're right, they do look like mandibles. Ours is similar, though we've limited the range of motion more since they fold vertically.

We did do the belly in carbon fiber this year; one of our big goals was to teach the kids to do layup, and it's gone really well. We've also experimented with other parts, like gussets. Another big goal was to get the comp bot powder coated, and I'm pleased to say it will get back to us from our new sponsor Blue Flame on Wednesday.

May as well post the rest of the pictures now too. The first is our stack of sliders; the second is the full bot as she stood yesterday.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Full bot.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

The new one's shorter, and the even newer final one will be an inch shorter than the short one in the picture. We can continue this conversation as a PM if you wish.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Your Maximum Scoring Document is wrong in varying categories. First, you can't score both a stacked tote set and tote set. "A TOTE SET exists if all three (3) Yellow TOTES from an ALLIANCE are fully contained by the AUTO ZONE, but do not
meet the requirements of a STACKED TOTE SET, at the end of AUTO."

Also if you score 7 of your Litter pieces in RCs than you can score the other 3 pieces as unprocessed litter for 4pts each. You cannot score the opposing alliance's 4 pieces as unprocessed litter without incurring fouls. And speaking of incurring fouls the maximum score gets really interesting when you consider teams accidentally spilling their game pieces onto the other side of the field. There are no rules that say you cant score those pieces. Additionally if they descore your game pieces when they knock their game pieces over the step you gain the points they descored at the end of the match. Again, nothing says you cant rescore those pieces so that could increase your max score.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

can you explain how this snow plow will work i dont see it possible for anyone to simply push the totes in the landfill around you have the two foot step in the back so no pushing it that way and you have them pretty much the full width of the field minus the small whole in the center, i only see it possible to pull them.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

While G17 makes it clear that we can't react against the HORIZONTAL surface of the step, we ARE allowed to react against the vertical side. We are lining up the plow blade and pushing. There is plenty of room to line up.

I'm sort of surprised that, in all the discussion about accessing the recycling containers on the step, people are only talking about ways to reach over the landfill. Why not just move it?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Reasons we decided not to move the landfill totes.
- We think it's faster to pull them over than to move the totes first.
- The land fill is a nice and organized area to pull totes from. Why would you want to mess that up when you can practice an efficient pattern at stacking and sorting them from their known starting position.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We decided against a snowplow mainly because it was faster to reach over, depending on the grabber.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We had a team of students and a mentor prototype mechanisms to do this for about a week, ranging from a cow catcher to a curved "tote redirector" that drove along an alliance wall. The cow catcher / snowplow designs for us were pretty terrible at getting much past the first layer of totes once you built the entire wall configuration. The "tote redirector" may have worked if we had lined it with idler wheels (think 1717's spine last year), but at that point we decided we weren't winning the auton battle and that our intake would be able to clear the 3-4 totes in the way quickly enough for qualifications in teleop.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

"Scorpion" you say. Sounds like design I had in mind, but have no team this year to implement any of my ideas :(
I suspect scorpion part is the one that loads noodles into the can?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Correct me if I am wrong. Looks like bot will lift totes one at the time, hold them separately in the air and stack them all at once when putting them down?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

That's correct.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Awesome !!!

Re: Unique robot design?
 

So the concept behind the snow plow is based more or less on playing pool. When you start up a game you break apart the triangle of balls and then pick off easy shots. If you look at our robots design you will see that it can handle multiple totes at once, but the time it takes to get to these totes and be ready to pickup isn't instantaneous, we have a lift we need to adjust (we got rid of a lot of alignment time with el toro but its still there). When we crack open the field or goal is to space totes out so we have quick pickup lines and no idle time where the gap between two totes is large enough that our mechanisms are ready to pickup a tote by the time we get to our next tote. The other advantage of this as in pool is when you break it open you have the chance of moving totes closer to where you need them. With vision drivers should be able to quickly identify pickup lines by tote orientation and looking for basic patterns one of the key ones I imagine is a path of totes roughly in the same orientation that starts close to the scoring platform dives a bit into landfill then comes back out. What I do not want to happen is that drivers get stuck in the habit of going for the closest tote to them when picking lines and spending time on a stubborn tote. I can see that happening a lot to teams that are keeping the starting pattern they only pickup totes in a certain order when in reality that order might not be the best. Breaking apart the totes should make those decisions on which tote to go to next much more clear.

Edit: Anybody got a better term then pickup lines in retrospect there has to be one...

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Is this the time of the year that your Robots may just be getting your hair to stand up on end.....? Well, stay awake out there. No matter how much sleep you may be lacking.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/6600...-hair-for-dust

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I think you maybe in for a surprise in this one I don't think the landfill is movable, good luck though

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We tested our container mechanism today, worked great minor tuning we grad carry a stack two containers at a time plus grab to off the step. In auto all while stacking

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Our team call robot like yours "cue ball" robot. We coined that term during our brainstorming on the day of kickoff.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Do you mean, difficult to move, or illegal to move?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

difficult wise, you have to look at how many totes are there, and the way they are packed in, and think about how many you have to actually move, it may not be the 3 or 4 you have in your shop, like a previous post said, it was going to be hard to move past the first row but I highly doubt the second.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

You do realize there is a giant gap in the middle.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

i do realize that, and even with that gap, its going to be difficult to make any progress with a snow plow, unless your robot is the size of a tote,

Re: Unique robot design?
 

It's possible that we are overly optimistic, but I assure you we wouldn't have troubled ourselves to incorporate it into our robot without the most realistic testing conditions we could make. On what is your pessimism based?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I wouldn't call 45" giant...especially since robots can be 42" long just in their travel configuration

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Early on, but too late for our team to turn back, some of the crew came up with something different. An overhead trolley crane. Collapsible trolley system, think an ez-up shelter, that covers the entire field. With a cable traversing system running inside it.
I would love to see if any team attempts such a design.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

While we definitely should get realistic conditions and replicate the idea behind it doesn't require moving everything. This is about picking things apart and making it easier to get to. But the use for the snow plow isn't just for the auto, that is a lot of resources sunk into something used for 15 seconds. In tele-op it provides a surface to peel totes off walls and align them for better spacing. This snowplow wasn't taken lightly because this year our biggest gate for scoring is air. Despite having a planet full of it I insisted on doing the math on how much air is used per actuation of most devices. Our intake mechanism uses air, our snow plow uses air, and we have a mechanism on the elevator that uses air. If we run out of air we lose efficiency for scoring. We can still stack and score but it wont be nearly as cleanly. Resource allocation when it comes to robot design limitations such as motors and sensors was something we emphasized a lot this year...
Of course with the resource argument states that basic mecanum is better then basic swerve in terms of motors per wheel.*
OOPS DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD.


*While true don't take it as fact.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Our team had a similar concept but ultimately realized it would be illegal since at least the cables for the trolley would be in the AUTO and/or Landfill zones at the start of the match.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Yesterday we figured out a passive system for our robot to help it move a majority of the landfill zone totes completely out of the way in two moves, so we can get to one, if not both containers on the step. I predict with practice, that we can do this under 10 seconds, and with some slave driving, maybe under 5. We will be doing more testing today with the robot powered so we can really get an idea of how fast we can clear the landfill zone. The proof of concept tests we did yesterday were very promising.

Hint: It's somewhat related to a snow plow. Think ice instead of snow.
Bonus hint: the entire "system" which is actually an attachment, can be cut from an 8x3 inch sheet of polycarb.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I find that instead of slave driving find out who drivers have a crush on and have them stand nearby during drive practice and giggle and whisper.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Stage fright on steroids?
Possible acclimation technique to simulate on-field nervousness.
Productivity level: productive.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

I would say that our robot is rather unique in two ways:
1.) It has 2 completely different lifts. One is a chain and hook system for stacking crates, one is a 4-bar for stacking containers and grabbing them off of the step.

2.) Our robot has two 45-degree angles in the front of the frame. This feature makes the crates self-align no matter what angle we are collecting from.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

It's based on our teams testing of a very realistic field setup, we found it rather time consuming and power draining to move the totes by way of snowplow, we really had to run into them to make a slight movement, and if they were off center from one another it makes it that much more difficult then we tried over the top and can grab two containers in 2 seconds and by 4 seconds be in the auto zone with two of the gray tots from the landfill dragged behind.

Another issue is if you push the landfill to get the containr on the far left, you then have to to push the totes back were they were if you want to get the container on the far right
If you want to do coop and you have the landfill totes pushed to one side it going to be difficult to get a stack of four if the other alliance can't get to that center

Re: Unique robot design?
 

The most unique aspect of the robot that we currently have are two long arms, mounted to the chassis with bolts but capable of some back-and-forth movement due to surgical tubing. Once a tote is far enough into the robot, the arms naturally move in a bit to straighten the tote.

These arms can be made out of nearly anything, they're incredibly easy to install, and they are quite good at corralling totes. Because of their height, they don't interfere with the cooperation platform. They might also help remove a tote or two from the landfill zone.

If teams currently have no intake mechanism and want to quickly make a good one, I would strongly recommend using ours. (Just send all of those letters of praise and adoration to Team 3807.)

Here's a video.

We're also considering some other unique things to do... for the most part, though, we just need to refine the mechanisms that we already have.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

The strategy we are using isn't based around getting resources quickly. It is about doing it efficiently. 2 bins in 4 seconds is absolutely impressive and I look forward to seeing your robot perform. This year I tried to model game play strategy around a few games I found had similar constraints. What I ended up with in methodology isn't about doing things quickly its about spending time in ways where that get you the most out of the time.
My original plan was to tether to all the recycling bins on the field before auto and reeling them in. Then the GDC made the landfill a volume and only one container set scoreable rulewise. The other deal breaker on it was when I asked "what next?" On asking that question I found myself with a robot trapped in the auto zone by a bunch of recycling containers and taking up a significant chunk of space that could be detrimental to team scoring ability.
Securing resources is absolutely important in this years game.
But you still need to score those resources for it to matter.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

It reads to me that your team might have tried to move the totes from a different angle? I'd love to see a field drawing or strategy mat that showed how you were pushing. I don't get how moving the totes away from the step would lead to the scenario you describe.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

While not my teams strategy, I can easily see a flywheel design breaking up the landfill an allowing easy access to the step RCs during auto.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

We think grabbing the high scoring field elements as soon as possible is the way to go not only does that save you time to use those field elements but it also Limits the opposing alliance...... I'll attempt to take pictures of our design tomarrow and post it, we added a wheely bar today because with both RC's 5 feet off the robot, frame the robot got alittle tipsy before we were able to bring them into the frame. the design is pretty much set in stone we just need a simple support to prevent the RC from rolling on the hooks.

Are you considering driving into the gap in the center and driving along the step pushing the totes towards your auto zone?

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Yes... But that doesn't seem like what you were describing earlier.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Pictures & videos soon, but your guess could not be further from the truth.

I can't swear we'll finish this beast on time our under weight but I will guarantee that if we manage to do so without having to jettison any major functionality or subsystem, we will have to explain the name to exactly zero folks who see this robot playing the game.

With that, I need to get back to work. One day of work left and then it's 100 or so of robots robots robots til Bag Time.

Dr. Joe J.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

Thought the same. But as a problem solver, considered adding swerve drive to each column. then expanding into those zones when appropriate.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

i wasn't i was thinking of something different, but i still have concerns. What exactly does this achieve for the allotted time used, okay you clear a path to the containers, which may or may not be useful to some teams. in lets say 10-15 seconds, then you end up with totes scattered and no longer packed which make it harder for passive design hooks to grab at, plus less maneuverability, it just seems much more complex strategy for less of a rewards.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

and as promised here is some pictures of our container design pretty much done, auto still needs fine programming but tel-op works so i don't see why auto wouldn't .

description, we have two arms double jointed and when fully extended are approx. 5 feet. each arm spins separately in a 360 degree rotation. using encoders to signify where they are. the arms are attached to a lift. that allows us to place the container on top of a 4 stack, since they spin we can be stacking totes on one end of the robot then place the RC can on top just by spinning the arms around. once the RC are captured, we fold our arms up to center the weight , and the RC's are then directly over the frame. this design allows us to pick up a can from anywhere on the field and from any position, and we can stack two at the same time as well. all together 4 seconds to grab two rc can off the step and pull them into the auto zone.

after our first trial we had to add a wheelie bar as when we first captured both RC the front end came up to high to the point were we could not drive now we drive a wheelie all the way into the auto zone then fold up.

Re: Unique robot design?
 

one more.....

Re: Unique robot design?
 

*looks at name of poster*
*looks at image*
I wouldn't expect any less than what I think you're doing