Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

Another zig-zag bumper design. Seeing more and more of them. Brando was singing their praises a few years back... ...yet another new trick for this old dog to have to learn...

It never ends with this FIRST stuff. You have to keep watching, keep learning if you want to stay on top of your game.

FYI, my favorite part of this year's Behind the Design was the great pains that Vince & Stephanie went to pull tricks of the trade out of their submissions and reveal them to the mere morals like you & I.

Zig-zag bumpers. Keep an eye out for them. They look like a lot of work. But a lot of smart teams seem to think the work is worth the bother.

Cheers,
Dr. Joe J.

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

We'll see how it works out soon! Hopefully it wasn't a waste of time...

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

The zig-zag components of the bumpers, were manufactured on a CNC router. The pool noodles, were happy to conform to the shape after a bit of persuasion and restraint. The most complicated and time consuming component was the fabric. A lot of time was spent trying to prevent creases in the bumper fabric.

As Josh said, only time will tell whether it was worth it.

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

Thanks Dave! hope to see you and 144 at champs again!

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

thanks

Our intake has approx 24 in of useful area, we use a combination of bumpers and a inside frame to center the ball.

cheers

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

The feature-set on this robot looks eerily familiar. It is good to know there is hope in this design, and we weren't crazy to jam-pack it all in.

Overall it looks really cool, like an event-dominating robot TBH. I wonder if the zig-zag bumpers will help or hurt with open-field pins. The ability to shoot 90-ish degrees to the right will help a TON if the lighting conditions change at a venue, requiring time to re-tune vision processing.

I am curious about the intake - it looks as if the pneumatic cylinders are able to stop mid-stroke to drop a ball off to the shooter?

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

Stop the video at 0:29. There's two cylinders.

Re: Australian 4613 Robot Reveal 2016!!
 

There are two cylinders, the first set push the arm to the ball drop off height. The second set, lift the arm to it's full height preventing it from getting hit by other robots, the raising of the arm also prevents the arm hitting obstacles or the ground again preventing damage. The second set, have a set of flow restrictors which reduce the forces on the arm when it stops at the top of it's travel. They allow the cylinders to act like shock absorbers, preventing jarring and damage to the arm from fatigue.