Re: Innovative designs
 

My team used a lot of brushes this year. While our spiral used McMaster strip brushing to push balls to the top, our collector used Duane Reade's full supply of conair hairbrushes. Cut off the handles and they fit right onto a tube of pvc. Just screwed them on and they worked great.

Re: Innovative designs
 

Our bot (MARS 1523) uses a surgical-tubing powered catapult/jai-alai cesta launcher. The only truly machined piece on the robot is the catapult hub, everything else is bandsaw/hacksaw/drill press/etc.

Our ball hopper is a basketball net stretched between aluminum tubes.

Re: Innovative designs
 

I'm not sure whether this counts as innovative or not, but our Brecoflex treads snapped in two during a match, so we cannibalized them and wrapped them around two of our pulleys to make some last-minute wheels. Then something very interesting happened: all of the bumps and ridges on the treads literally, over the course of a few qualifying matches, rubbed away, and we had a smooth, gum-rubbery surface. With our jaws hanging on the floor, we took out all the screws that held the treads to the pulleys and reattached new ones.

There was also a rookie team, 1866, that had come with basically a moving chassis. We had two matches coming up with them, and since all they were equipped to do was basically push balls around and climb the ramp, we decided to try and help them play defense during the match. To do this, we made two "posts" out of 80/20 and wooden dowels and attached them to each end of their robot, width-wise. Then we zip-tied on some of the spare fabric we'd had left over from our bumper supply. Their robot just about quadrupled in height. :)

Re: Innovative designs
 

There was a team in Pittsburgh- I wish I could remember the #- That had a complete surgical catapult retracted and fired with pnuematics. As I remember, it was quite accurate and consistant. Really, really amazing to see, and it looked to be hacksaw and drill.

Re: Innovative designs
 

Another thing I thought was nice about our 'bot - at the competition at Hartford, I spotted a lot of teams using gravity feed, some using conveyor belts, and a few using pneumatic pumps to get the balls to feed into their shooters. We used a spiral with a set of brushes in the middle that rotated to brush the balls up the ramp. Our shooter mounts at the top of the ramp, and when we want to shoot, there is a fiber glass flap that we attached at the very top that extends beyond the brushes to slap the balls off the ramp and feed them in. There's no way for them to really go anywhere but from the floor into the goal (if all goes as planned, that is).

Re: Innovative designs
 

This was last year's last minute addition: After noticing our arm motor was running hot, we improvised a heat sink. During testing and after matches the motor was never hotter than room temp.


This year we had to make our own encoder wheels because the shaft was spinning too fast to use a COTS encoder. I don't have any pictures, but it works quite nicely.

Re: Innovative designs
 

A picture of our bot (Although I don't personally think it falls in your "ugly" category) can be seen on our gallery here. The ball net worked quite well in the end, virtually no balls bounced back out unlike teams with hard Plexiglass hoppers.

We also used plastic green garden fencing to shield our bot. It was painted black for fear of a DQ, but we have since learned we had nothing to worry about (it was a dark forest green).

Another thing to note is the front wheels are made from glued-together PVC end caps. The rear wheels are homegrown styrofoam and fiberglass with about six layers on them. They were sanded on a lathe and a rubber conveyor belt track was added for traction.

Re: Innovative designs
 

Ian thats what I was going to say. Plus I think 375 used metal backed cardboard for their spiral hopper. Not ugly, but pretty smart, light, and cheap.

Re: Innovative designs
 

If you were at NJ regional my team 528 we used that big orange snow netting. No problems with it at all. :D

Re: Innovative designs
 

Looking at the picture I see team 1665's bot. I don't know exactly what they made the spiraling ball ramp with, but it looks like it fits the requirements of this thread.

Also at UTC were the underrated #2 seed, team 716. They used a long piece of cloth for their ball "box" and when they wanted to empty it they pulled it over a bar like a window shade, lifting the bottom and emptying the "box"! The shade was even tie dyed with a question mark like their uniforms, very functional and unique.

I suppose our bot does not qualify for this thread, but we did use ordinary window screening and velcro to make our ball box. And the spiraling hose on our beater bar is 3/4" hose found in any high school chemistry lab.

Bill Pease
Aces High Team 176
2006 UTC New England Champions with 177 and 1124
2006 BAE Granite State Finalists with 319 and 562

Re: Innovative designs
 

1006 (Fast Eddie) Had a hockey stick on the left and right side of their robot

Inovativeness :D

Re: Innovative designs
 

Another robot that deserves mention is 308. They were an awesome robot at GLR, though I didn't get to see them in-depth. Their robot was made almost entirely of plastic. When I first saw it, it was so clean looking that it looked like a commercial robot, and watching the whole revolver-hopper mechanism and pneumatic catapult (i think) shooter was like a plastic robotic ballet. If you happen to be at the same regional as them, I would definitely reccomend checking that robot out.

As for our robot...well...it has some netting on our expansion that one of the parents picked out. It changes color in different lighting, from gold to green. It looks like a medley of porta-potty contents, but is rather neat anyways.

Re: Innovative designs
 

Everybody thanks for your posts so far. They really make me smile! :) It's really great to hear the creative ways teams have constructed their robots. I really like the emergency repairs. Keep em coming!

Re: Innovative designs
 

308's robot is probably the most unique robot of the competition this year. Since I work at TRW in Farmington Hills (308's sponsor) and used to be a mentor on that team, I have all of the inside scoop on the design.

The entire hopper/feeder/shooter mechanism is completely mechanically coordinated and timed, much like a watch. It is all driven off of one motor that continuously spins. It drives a Geneva Mechanism that indexes the sorter, then winds the rubber band of the lost-motion catapault. Once the band is wound, the arm flings the ball and the whole thing starts again. They can shoot about 2 balls per second this way. They have a really nice video of it shooting 10 balls in about 5 seconds during the build season. Maybe I can find a way to have them post it somewhere.

Re: Innovative designs
 

[quote=Chris Hibner]308's robot is probably the most unique robot of the competition this year. Since I work at TRW in Farmington Hills (308's sponsor) and used to be a mentor on that team, I have all of the inside scoop on the design.

You got my curiosity up. I went to their website and could find nothing. Could you get someone to put a picture up there.

Ed