pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Looks really cool!

Just one thing I'd watch out for, does the arm violate the 6'x6' footprint rule? It seems that an arm like that would require it to go outside that boundary to go all the way out in front of your robot. I could be wrong though, it is hard to tell from an isometric viewpoint. Just something to keep an eye on as you design your arm. Even if it does violate the rule, I'm sure with a bit of tweaking you could get it to fit.

In any case, great work!
Mike C.

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Woot ramp-bot!

How tall is that thing folded up?

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

OH MAN!
i had that exact same idea! that looks AMAZING!
well my ramps were a lot smaller but mine was in the concept stage only..
i still have no idea what design my team has chosen, if they have chosen one yet, all we've worked on is our arm.
good work there, and good luck

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

The arm can violate the 72"X72" rule... that's what the extension is on because of. We can put our arm perfectly horizontal in back of us only if the arm pneumatic isn't extended; when it is, we're limited to working near the ground or to the high goal only (or on the other side of the robot, of course).

Folded up I think we're looking at around 45" tall or so. The closest we want to get to our height limit is 47".

Thanks for the compliments!

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

do you have plans to add any kind of cushioning/support around your arm incase a bot were to go berserk while climbing you?

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

A beautiful design...and I say this because it looks VERY familiar!! :cool:

Good luck this year!!

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Nice design! Two questions/concerns I've got on it.

1. How long's your ramp, and what's the angle on it? Discussions have come up regarding robots not being able to climb a steep ramp- you may want to consider "flattening" it out a little bit.

2. How many bots can you fit on top, once they're up the ramp, and what kind of support do you have overtop of the main body of the robot, to ensure it doesn't break and crush all your electronics??

Nice design overall guys!

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

We are planning on having "guide rails" along the sides of our ramp to help our partners drive up us straight, we hope that will be enough to prevent them from destroying our arm.

We don't know for certain our ramp heights yet, however we're guessing it'll be between 32" and 36" long, which would give us an incline of about 20 degrees. We hope to fit 2 robots on top, we may or may not lift the ramp portion up at the end of the match to ensure both partners are 12" above the ground. The actual materials for the ramps are still uncertain, however the middle is going to be given as much material as needed to prevent destruction of our robot.

There seems to be alot of teams who have said they thought up a design like this at some point. Hopefully that's a good thing!

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

How wide do you expect the ramp will be?

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Again, nice to know us clever folks (or dodo heads, time will tell) think alike!! Here's our similar design with the ramps up. Still roughing out some major details.

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Our ramps will only be 30"-32" wide. If you're a wide robot we won't be lifting you, we had to make a design decision and figured it was more important to develop a good arm than to try to add compatability for all robot configurations.

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

A 28" wide robot with bumpers will be wider than 32", Something to think about.

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

How high do you lift robots off the ground? It looks to me as if you're going for 12", though.
Also, a question about your arm: how do you plan to extend the moving parts of your arm? (lead screw, pneumatics, chain, cable and pulleys, etc.)

It does look cool though. Nice design.

Re: pic: 498's Aircraft Carrier Deployed
 

Can those Omni Wheels take on that load?