I'll admit it's a brilliant design... the closest thing we came up with to that was a big arm that swung at the boxes from the starting postition. If we'd only build that, we could have still had a shot against you... One question: your bot looks very thin. Its center of gravity is obviously very low, but what happens when you strike all those boxes AND an opponents madly onrushing robot 5' above the floor at an angle on the ramp? Does it fall over?

do u guys have a dual trans or 4 motors?

How the heck does that thing make weight? We are about 120 lbs and our bot is only 13.5 inches high 36x30 base. Did you forget to weigh it with the battery on it?

I'm skeptical about how many times you can do that before something bad happens, but still, I'm blown away. That's pretty sick (as in good).

I'm most impressed by the guts (insanity) it must have taken to commit to, design, and build that kind of robot. Lets hear it for courage in innovation!

-Joel

Yup! No matter how they ended up doing at competition, they can definitely say they learned something special this year about designing robots. It take lots of guts to throw away conventional designs and create something new. This robot is going to be so impressive to the crowds for competition and demos. Very cool.

'mazing.

what happens if your bot comes down on top of something else or another bot??? what would happen???? the mysteries.....



otherwise it is a really cool idea and i am glad you guys pulled it off. i will pray that you don't encounter difficulty with the design and some of the flaws that might be present.



i heard myself going:

ewwwwww ahhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeeeeee oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh

Geez...Looks amazing. See one flaw though

Where's your revolving light? Don't see one.

Wow!
 

WOW!

Holy Sh**!
That is SOME bot.
(did someone say AWARDS)

:D :ahh:

WPI's The Wall Genie
 

190 had a similar idea, but not quite. We made all the calculations and determined that our idea was indeed possible to get to bins in under 4 seconds. However, we dismissed the idea as too great a design risk. Anyway, here was our idea:

"The Wall Genie"
We would anchor ourselves to the carpet using ridged hardwood (since we couldnt use metal). Then folding out of our starting position would be a 3 part swing-arm. It would reach over the lexan, and have hooks to pick up the ENTIRE WALL of bins. We would left every last bin up, and swing it around, in the same direction our opponents would be heading up the ramp. We would then simply hold all bins (150 lbs) about 6 feet in the air, possibly out of bounds if there were no obstructions. Then, with just enough time left we would swing them into our zone, placing them all nicely down on the carpet, making sure to remove contact with all bins.

Pretty amazing, and it would have worked well; but again we deemed it too high of a design risk, and if we werent able to get to those bins FIRST, we'd not be able to do anything else (this design had no driveline whatsoever).

Good job though, 179. I see quite a few problems that design could run into, but we'll just have to wait until competitions and see what happens; good luck.

To me. Looking at the pictures the kickstands seem to be a big target if we were trying to hit you and get you off of the ramp.

When they are up they are a prime place to take a running start at, when down they don't seem to follow the profile of the ram and again are in the way. Who knows.

Great idea and execution thus far.

*picks jaw off of floor*



That thing is amazing, I can't wait to see it work.

To those of you who say that you see flaws...BLAH!!! All of our bots have flaws (well, 'cept maybe 173's). They deserve nothing but kudos for having the guts that all of us only wish we had. They not only thought about a risky design, but went ahead and built a functioning bot. They epitomize not only thinking outside the box, they can't even see the box from where they are.

I WANT VIDEO !!!!!!

PS It also takes guts to post that with so many days left--and you nay-sayers--they still can correct those flaws in the remaining time.

I've been a defender of the possible flaws in this bot since I first saw it. So I'll jump in here, too.

Their bot is designed to flip over the lexan within the first 2 seconds of the match. There is only one possibility of them coming down on a box, and thats if immediatly a team can flick a box where they land (while in autonomous mode). There is the possibility they land on a bot, or possibly the field, if there is a team that can (in auton) go full reverse and hit 179 before they are half-way through their flip manuever.

They will be like throwing a banana, obscure center of gravity, but I don't forsee any problems.