Most Impressive Manipulator
 

This is a spinoff of sanddrag's thread about drivtrains.
So what is the most impressive manipulator that you have seen in the past years?

This year 16 had a cork screw like end effector on their bot that effectvely grabbed tetras and dropped them. It swiveled to pick up tetras and then went in revers to drop thm over the goals. There was another team that played on galileo before the finals that had 2 of those swivelers and could tilt them I don't know the team # though

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I think you're thinking of 85, and they were in Curie.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

2004:
571, sucked up and spit out the small balls like mad.

2003:
73, I saw this robot make a stack of 4 in about 20 seconds. One of the best stacking robots.

2002:
60, how can you not mention that robot. Everyone was in awe over this picture for a week after it came out.
157, they made that awesome noise and were one of the most effective ball bots that year.
95, you can't mention balls without mentioning this amazing machine. 20 balls in a second.
121, the only team with a sewing machine in the pits. Great ball bot.

2001:
177, such a great arm, so effective.
308, the mantis bot as I called it. It could balance two goals on the bridge and get back to the end zone.

2000:
47, one of the first robots with a swerve drive. It helped make their manipulator so much more effective.

That does it for right now. Until I start to remember some more.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I'll go with 188's tetra grabber this year. It was shaped like a tetra, and could pick up two at a time, including ones from the ground.
When it picked up two, they were stacked on top of each other, and it could release either one or two.

I thought it was a really cool design (esp compared to our L shaped stick)

(Don't have a picture, sorry)

~Stephanie
Team 1351

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I thought the speed and power of 254's arm this year was very impressive. The end effector was designed for efficent retrieval of the tetra from the auto loading station and quick deposit on the goal. At SVR, in nearly every match they played their alliance was able to keep every goal their color for the majority and end of the match.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

And in practice rounds on thier practice field, with just one robot they could stack 9 every round, going to the auto loading station and to the goal. Overall they had a very fast drive train and arm system.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I have to agree and say that 188's manipulator was probably the most impressive. I love the options it gives you, whether you want to drop one or both. It was also able to go really high so they could stack on 6-7 on the center goal easy.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

2004:
33's ability to herd so many balls and spit them out so quickly
1083's roller blade wheeled ball collector was quite impressive

2005:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=38465
997's abilty to hold and deposit of 6 or 7 tetras at a time was a lot of fun to watch

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

Perhaps it's because I'm distracted, but I always seem to see the most impressive manipulators at competitions I'm not competing in.

For 2004, 33 definitely had the ball thing down. And to hang on top of that is bonus. But when it came to the bar, I'm torn between 180, 237, and 330 (if memory serves me right). 237 and 330 both had the monkeybot thing going, which did wonders on defending the bar. However, 180's method of hanging made them the first robot in FIRST that blew my mind. I remember looking away for a couple of seconds at Palmetto, SPAM planted on the ground. I look again, and they're airborne. Surface-to-Air Meat, indeed.

This year, I once again tip my hat to 33. Their arm was nice and smooth, and through a bit of paneling and other Jedi mind tricks, that arm looked even beefier than it possibly could've been. (I think having the honeycomb paneling did it.) I also loved the telescoping and rotating setups employed by 233 and 1251, the latter of which I still can't believe wasn't picked in Archimedes. (Now that I think of it, 1251 was at Palmetto with 1293--but I first saw them at Florida, which 1293 didn't go to. So the theory holds...but I digress.)

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

2005: 33, 56, 233, 254 All picked up and capped tetras fast and smooth

2004: 33 (quickest ball picker I saw), 45 (such a massive arm)

2003: 73 (quickly stacked boxes), 365 (could quickly release or grab boxes)

2002: 60 (just look at the pic in Ogre's post), 71 (grabbed all three goals and dominated the field, expect for Finals Match 2 against SPAM) , 173 (quickly loaded and unload tons of balls)

2001 (wasn't on a team this year, basing off of videos): 71 (dominated the field), 111 (so creative)

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

'01 - 234 (I wasn't on the team then) once they got the arm working and the control (by the operator's arm motion) going it was good at what it did. midwest DTT and (at that time) national's DTT.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I just thought of one more for the list...

2004: 21. ComBBAT had this massive fabric basket that would fly open at the start of the match and sit under the ball dump long enough to get nearly every single ball. Now, granted, there was the issue of getting all those balls to the human players, but it was still impressive to watch. (If there was a way to get under the other alliance's ball dump, that thing could be devastating defensively. Especially against the 33s of the bunch.)

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

2005: Some teams that definitely caught my eye were team 25, 33, 56, 67, 179, 233, and 237. Every single team that I just pointed out were efficient at stacking. I was walking by team 25's pit at championship, and their robot was extended up all the way high. It looked very scary.

2004: Team 45 hands down. One of the most amazing, effective, efficient and dominant robot I have seen in my FIRST career. That arm was simply awesome.

2003: Team 111 and 312. Both team hit the stack in less than 3 seconds. After 111 hit the stack, they would either sweep the opponents field or would sit on the ramp with their wings down. After 312 hit the stack they would take over the whole ramp. The cool thing is they took out every single box.

2002: Team 180 and team 71. That was my first year in FIRST. I saw these 2 robots going against each other on einstein. Talk about getting hooked? These two teams has showed me what power is.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I agree with 33, they were just amazing. They didn't even use the bar hanging at VCU that year. All they did were the balls.

I really like the rookie team last year that also stood under the ball drop and caught all of them before they dropped. And who can forget th BEAST from 2004 and this year.
They could hang do the 2x and catch the balls before they dropped in 2004. This year they were just so amazing at depositing tetras.

Also a lesser knwon team that had a good manipulator was team 1414. Although they placed low in the standings, they had a nice manipulator. They could stack probably 10 high. Their arm had a bas which rotated so that it could deposit tetras on goals behind it and inforont. It could also hoold 3 at a time.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

2003 980 Thunderbots. They got the whole wall knocked down to their side in less than 3 seconds and they didn't even have to drive anywhere to do it. They had an extremely long telescoping arm.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

330, 237, 64, 1266, and I think one other team (don't remember the number, but they made it to Einstein--had a blue hook with yellow tubing to it) all had some form of slider, at least in theory. The only ones I personally saw working were 237, 330, and the other team.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

868 :)

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

By most impressive do you mean most innovative, most simple for accomplishing its task, or best operated? Each of these things can be factors in deciding whether or not a mechanism is good, with the exception of most innovative. Although, from experience, I can say that building something that’s really cool for the heck of it can be a lot of fun.

2000:
47 - their clam shell could score a ton of balls and steal a ton of balls from their opponents.
111 – their ball conveyor mechanism has been copied by countless teams, including themselves in 2002

2001:
60 / 254 – simple gripper mechanism that used a single actuator and minimal pieces to grab the 30” balls
234 – their arm that was controlled by the student driver’s arm movements

2002:
60 – grabbed 2 goals, lifted them off the ground, and swung them at 30RPM… scary stuff
95 – 18 balls in less than 5 seconds… dang…
111 – improved and adapted ball mechanism from 2000, as well as 2 goal grabbers and a swerve

I disliked the 2003 game. No matter how well you could stack, you could still have your stack knocked over or otherwise be beaten. It didn’t matter how well you could manipulate boxes. Telescoping or other kinds of autonomous flailers didn’t matter, either, because a scoring zone could be cleared by one robot in a minute or so (given half decent drivers). I thought this was a bad year for manipulators, since the majority of teams realized they should clear their opponents’ scoring zone, then rush to the plateau. In the end, there were some cool things made for dealing with the bins, but I wouldn’t look back at that game in particular when looking for a mechanism to adapt or improve upon.

2004: I didn’t catch much of 2004. I was only able to attend Sacramento and SVR.
33 – great ball collecting robot
45 – good herding robot, and great capping robot
60/254 – probably the best all around robot for the game. It did everything: knocked down the 10 point ball in autonomous, dragged a goal, had wings with passive rollers on them for increased herding area and they wouldn’t get hung up on a ball, 3-pronged gripper for easier ball pickup without needing much alignment and good capping, and they could hang from the floor

2005:
22/56/67/233/245/254/330/etc – kept it simple and basically just lanced a tetra and then deposited it, and did it effectively
217/229/968 – kept it almost as simple but added an actuator to better secure the tetra
16 – the pig tail was cool
85 – if the pig tail was cool, then the corkscrews were crazy cool
469 – the scare factor alone from seeing three of their tetras on top of your cap on the center goal is enough for me to add them

I got to coach two of our practice matches at SVR, and in both matches we scored 8 and 9 tetras. The most impressive part about this, imho, is that our drivers were able to score these tetras on goals all over the field. There was one practice match where we blacked out the whole field by ourselves. When we were trying to cap massive quantity in one match at The Championship we were able to cap 12 on 3 goals plus capping in autonomous.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

In my opinion the best manipulators were 980's and 233's. Both team's manipulator were very simple and very effective and both teams had great autonomous mode.

980 was so fast at picking up tetras from the auto loader and caping them. Also their Auto mode was crazy, they would start with tetra cap the goal middel goal of the end zone, than turn the arm knock down, pick up the tetra and cap it, and like if it wasn't enough they would the go half way to the auto loader. :ahh:

Another amazing team was 233, their telascoping arm was so fast and strong, they were also very fast at getting tetras from auto loader and they could carry two tetras at the same time.

That's just my opinion. :D
Dave

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

I have to agree with 980, although I don't agree to it being as "simple", but what other robot can do so much and stay in one place? The arm resembles a regular human arm in that it can move in any direction possible with the 4 degrees of freedom. Up-down, round and round, that robot was just crazy. For the San Diego Scrimmage they did put on a simpler rigid end for an arm, but nothing beats the arm at nationals. At every regional and competition, it seems like the team is just fixing something on the arm to make it function better.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

Whoever thought of that arm idea was a pretty awesome

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

LOL
That arm design was very simple and very effective. Props to you guys and congrats once again for being the Champions.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

hmmm this is what i thought were the best/most unique in this year's game:

16-Soo quick at picking it up with the pig tail
45-The Arm wasn't able to be pinned and they could release from any angle with their turret and that was great engineering.
56-The Spoon, which i believe was created on accident was lots of fun to watch
67-I liked the entire arm design, flexible and fast, the 4 long prongs suited what they wanted well
111-Able to pick tetras up at the loading station on the fly, very quick to pick up 2, very rare in this year's game.
135-Their ability to virtually slap a tetra on was awesome, the 5 pronged fork was great for picking stuff up too
229-I've said it before and I'll say it again, widest manipulator ever!! definitely deserves credit on this thread.
254-The Shape that form fitted the tetra gave them great stability on the tetra up high and an easy unload

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

spoon???????? well whatever it is yer talking about it was designed that way, of coarse it worked alot better then we thought, but it was built the way we designed it

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

16 For innovation

469, This bot did no impress me until the elimination rounds, It seemed atfirst like it was a Mass Capper(what I call a robot that simply drops alot on with out strategy and cannot stand up to defense) however in elimination it out muscled a couple other bots and played their tetras high and often to win, This amazed me, they were one of the few bots that could cap multiple tetras any where and at any time.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

175 had a manipulator that was very well built for the HP. All they had to do was run up and slap the tetra into the hook and it was latched.

When I saw 85 on Curie and 469 on Galileo my jaw dropped.

I was pretty impressed by 190s capping mechanism in theory. All you had to do was drive up to the goal and press a button.

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

for 2005 I'm going to say 179 just for being so efficient. KISS at it's best there (arm basically that drive was a bit more complicated)

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

Their were a lot of impressive robots this year and I congratulate all teams that competed this year. However some teams deserve some special recognition:

16 - Great job with the corkscrew idea, one of the most innovative designs that I saw this year

56 - Amazing robot guys, your fast and simple device dominated on the field no matter what the odds

67 - That was a great battle in Ohio and you truely deserved all the titles you claimed this year. Your robot design was one of a kind and was just simply very effective. The spikes were a great idea, very efficient especially with the auto loader

229 - Great guys to work with on the field and off. Their robot really delivered with a well thought out manipulator and arm design.

254 - One of the fastest robots that I have seen. Their manipulator design was superb and it operated with a certain grace and flow.

1279 - An ingenious two armed design that was very simple and effective. They were simply amazing at the NJ regional and at nationals.

179 - The fastest robot that nobody could stop. Their simple rake design with an unstoppable base proved to be a deadly combination on the field.

135 - Great allies with a robot that could stack tetras with great speed. The vertical-lift rake was great!

103 - Fast and effective with their elevator type lift. They were quick at stacking while they zipped around the field on their fast base.

I wanted to give special recognition to team 1626 for having such a great rookie robot. They were tough competitors this year and I expect great things from them in future competitions.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THAT COMPETED THIS YEAR!!!!

GO 1403!!!

Re: Most Impressive Manipulator
 

its funny everyone is saying 229 and not 217 didnt they build the same bot??? and 217 made it onto einstein i woulda thought 217 woulda beeen said more than 229, i dunno maybe im stupid and they arent the team that worked together lol