Chief Delphi - Q&A Discuss: Tethering without being entanglement

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Q&A Discuss: Tethering without being entanglement

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Tethering without being entanglement

Quote:

A rookie team question. Does anyone have a good way of tethering a mousebot without it being a source of entanglement. Also, I couldn't tell if tethering is even going to be allowed this year.

Just Checking

Nelson Green
TEAM 1108
Panther Robotics
http://www.geocities.com/robohyo

Last year there were alot of teams with tethers last year that should have been called for entanglement, but there were teams that put much effort into creating a design that wasn't.

Last year we had a fully steerable "mini-Rover" that could no way entangle other robots. We took Lexan and made channels which the wire (power & pwm) could lay in. We cut and glued thin lexan on top to close the channel. Each channel was about 25" long and they were connected on each end to create a z-frame (1/2 scissor). It all folded up inside our robot and just unfolded as the mini-Rover drove out.

I think it's very possible it just takes some time to design the appropriate mechanism. There we also some other teams that had some 'non-tangling' tethers, so maybe they can offer some other ideas too.