Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

it was a cool gripper but i think they changed it . i think they are just a skewer now.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

Team 447 out of Anderson, Indiana has a very interesting and effective design. Basically they have a metal cone and from what i understand there is a piston inside which when fires comes down and latches underneath the tetra clover to trap it in the cone. When these guys go to work they can cap the middle row in less than 10 or 15 seconds if they have tetras stored on the front of their bot.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

man those 447 guys are always coming up with good robots. i remember last year they had an awesome robot.


thanks 447 and 648 for a great time last year at Midwest.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

Since we can't vote for ourselves, I'll have to vote for 229 :D :D :D

I also liked 469's gripper. It was the wrong strategy, but it was still cool to watch, and I never really figured out how it worked.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

56's was niiiiice.

It had the simplicity of the simple stab design, and solved the problem of the tetra falling down the arm.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

I think two of the best capper mechanisms out there belong to 56 and 38. 56's design is simple and quick and 38's is robust (think NYC semi finals) and is a quick capping design. Both robots I am sure will do well at nationals. 303's design is not too shabby for a fork design and 173 is one of the quickest cappers I have seen.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

***********//**[|]**\\
**********//***[|]***\\
********\ //****[|]****\\ / <------ actual pick up spot of tetras,
*********\\****[|]****// (goes in and out)
**********\\***[|]***//
***********\\**[|]**//
************\\[||||]// <----- base goes up and down (5\/\/337)
**************[|]
**************[|]
**********|========| <------ omni drive
**********|========| [/left]

Hey Purple! How did you obtain the drawings we used to do our machining with? Seriously though, that ASCII drawing is way cool.

It was funny how that final design finally came about. We kept adding pieces to the arm until the tetras stopped falling off. I wish I could say we did this crazy analysis using quatum, chaotic, neural, fuzzy, self-organizing, genetic, fractal algorithms to find the optimal angles and sizings. But nope, just until it stop falling off or getting stuck in the robot.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

469 uses some servos to actuate this arm thingy and some more to actuate these other arm thingys. its cool. at nationals you should go check them out. it is almost like 71's gripper.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

Now that many of you have replied to my thread, i'll post my own opinions. I think the Best tetra placer is team 1213's. It might jsut seem like a simple forklift, but it is wicked fast, and the drivers are very good at aligning it. THe team that gets the best hold on the tetra would be a tie between team 93 and 27. Team 93 was stealing tetras from robots trying to cap at West Michigan. It was simply sweet. Team 27 actually pulled down another robot when the opposing robot clamped down on the TETRA (ie; they didn't touch 27's robot at all, JUST THE TETRA, and 27 had such a firm hold over it, when they tried to drive away the opposing robot fell over), im sure it was an accident (no penalties), but it was still cool to see. Both teams were still able to release tetras very fast, averaging around 6-7 a match. There were many great designs, but these were my personal favorites.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

sorry for posting twice, my computer locked up, and i was unsure if the post made it through or not.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

My favorite tetra grabbers were 384 and 447. It was very hard to knock a tetra out of Sparky.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

You weren't watching the right team at Vegas man. ;) Hands down, we have one of the best grippers in the nation. Our locks on so we can't drop it or get stolen from us. We have a smooth release of it. We can cap the center goal from the auto-loading station in under 10 seconds. Our best time was something like 8.65.


Also, what some people don't realize, is that any robot that can carry more then 1 tetra at a time is vulnerable. 1641, who was the Mojave robotics team at Vegas was easily stopped. Their robot looked like Waldo. I saw them flip once while they were a good 15 feet up. Must've hurt. :\

1266, the Devil Duckies. They flipped twice at Vegas and they can cap 4 tetras at a time, possibly more. And they don't get that high. They stay at their box position the entire match. All you gotta do is hit them once or twice when they go to cap and they'll miss. Sometime fall if they catch the bar just right. There is strategy to take any team down. Everyone has a week point. You just have to find it. If you want a picture of our claw, go to www.team987.com and search in the 2005 photo albums. You'll see what I mean. We also had the most capped per round in Vegas. Andy Baker said we were at a disadvantage as we were essentially the best robot there and everyone was watching out for us in the elimination rounds. If it was at the boilermaker or some harder regional, we would've done better because we wouldn't have been so watched out for there.

I know you said you couldn't nominate your own team, so I'll nominate 294 as a unique grabber. Held on tight to that puppy. :p

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

man that this is crazy good. i loved seeing their robot at the Detroit regional. next to the chickens and 1701 i loved that robot.

and yes i said it I REALLY LIKED 1701S ROBOT. they had this gripper that similar to our old one. but i think it worked better then ours. yes i said it it worked better then ours...a rookie teams gripper arm was better then a 9 year team. no i am just playing. it happens all of the time. i just really liked those guys.

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

Love the drawing... but for those of you looking for something a little more... real... you can see it here on CD. link

Re: BEST Tetra Grabber
 

I was at the houston regional in which 118 participated. I must say that that is one awsome grabber. there were many times where the sheer speed of thier ability to cap could have scored them a clean sweep, owning all goals. Whether it was proffesionalism or luncy I dont know, but the never did choose to own all of them