Re: The Spring
 

I agree that it's concerning that droswell's pictures seem to indicate little bounce (though they're static images of a static load) while Justin's video of a spring with identical specs shows that if the gear doesn't get placed at least halfway into the spring there's a good chance it's coming off, and if you knock the spring as you're placing it it might come off too. I hope it's not just due to a wide tolerance in the manufacturing of the spring.

I think this would also make me weary of any strategy that is dependent on a totally passive gear manipulator - where the human player is lifting it out of the robot.

Re: The Spring
 

I'm all for some video of a "McMaster" spring. If springs folks are getting from other sources behave differently, I'm sure we all want to know.
Thanks!

Re: The Spring
 

We'll put together a video shortly and post it.

Re: The Spring
 

We received our Mcmaster spring last night and have not mounted it yet. With just playing with it, Would say the video is reasonable.

Re: The Spring
 

Here are some pictures / videos from 319 playing with the spring at kickoff. Not sure what to take away from it, but the spring at kickoff seemed much sturdier than the one posted above.

4 GEARS on spring.

Dropping a loaded spring from ~2ft.

Some big oaf bending the spring by hand.

Re: The Spring
 

I am just wondering where the teams are located that are receiving springs from McMaster Carr. We are in Washington and the response I get from MC is that they will be shipping in the last week of January.

Are you guys from a different part of the country?

thanks

Re: The Spring
 

Re: The Spring
 

Here's our spring testing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4XiDYRmNRE

Re: The Spring
 

We bought springs within the hour after kickoff and got ours last week. I assume people who ordered later in the day/weekend are getting theirs now. If you didn't order until last week you're probably not getting one for awhile.

Re: The Spring
 

Ordered on Sunday of kickoff, still ~1week out

Re: The Spring
 

Hi Bob

Miss being in the PNW.

We ordered at kickoff and got it today. We went for overnight, not cheap, but it took a week.

Re: The Spring
 

We have ours and have found that it is in fact very flimsy. We initially thought it was only a spring instead of a rod to prevent robots from breaking it by running into the side, but now we think that the gear must be all the way "on" to stay on the spring.

Re: The Spring
 

Justin,
I do not have a video yet, I will get one posted but we ordered the spring 3 of them 36in each from Essentra Components. All of the spring characteristics match the spring provided in the game manual, but it does look stiffer than what you have posted. I will try and recreate what you did tomorrow at our meeting and send you some videos. If you want I can also give you some of this spring and we can compare the ones you have and the ones we do.

I am also really interested in the difference!

Re: The Spring
 

Point of reference for those waiting on the McMaster Carr spring. I ordered ours the Monday after kickoff. It shipped out of the Atlanta wharehouse yesterday.

Re: The Spring
 

Our McMaster one came in today. I took it over to the Robonauts so we could do a direct comparison between the century one they got with identical specs to the mcmaster one as far as I can tell (https://www.mcmaster.com/#9664k68 vs http://www.centuryspring.com/extensi...ings-e-41.html) They behave very differently.

Foreground picture is the century one, background one is the mcmaster. Heading over to FIRST Q&A now to ask if they're only going to source the spring from McMaster. Aw man, just missed being the cheesy poof question: https://frc-qa.firstinspires.org/qa/255