Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

I had thought of something similar, but a little more wacky. Instead of motorcycle, more like a tricycle. The electronics are housed ina thin tall and long box. sticking out the front is a wheel on a servo that can rotate. on the back are two powered wheels sticking out at an angle (about 15 degrees) on the end of pistons. When the tricycle speeds around a turn, the inside piston retracts so the tricycle 'banks' through the turn. Someone later pointed out to me that i wont even need the right piston because we'll only be turning left :-)

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

My favorite design was basically we somehow load the ball into a bowl like structure on a pole going out the back of our bot, the pole would be able to rotate probably 90 degrees so in the end it could be vertical. so we pick up the ball and line up a few feet away from the overpass. four pneumatic actuator things extend from the corners of the bot lifting it a couple feet in the air. the front actuators close violently throwing the ball forward over the overpass.

My idea... if only it didn't violently shake the base of the robot and make the base fall roughly two feet

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Helicopter bot... If you could somehow pull that off and if it could hold the ball, that would be so freaking effective.

Hummmmmm... lol

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

well last year we had the idea to release a monke on to the rack so no one could score

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

We thought about building a PORTAL gun for this years game. We did mock ups of the bot with it and everything, we would have the game controller be a USB mouse and attach a 5 in game screen to the control panel. Yeah... we decided that the laws of time and space didn't exist for a day.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

A monkey? Or a monk? I can't shake the image of a cloaked and balding seminarian climbing through the layers of the rack, fending off attacks by robots carrying inflatable rings.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Well... our crazy idea is in this thread.

But the "release the hamsters" reminded me of my favorite part of the manual (it's been in it for a few years)- go to Section 8, pg. 30. In the left-hand column, in the bottom bubble, it shows that gerbils may not be used as an energy source.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Since your robot may not be taller than 6 feet in the Opponent's Home Stretch, I considered a jumping robot. Or trained squirrels running the robot.

Edit: Yes, ydnar90, very true. I did come up with this before they changed the rules, but thank you for pointing this out. The robot would have jumped on springs... :)

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Blue Mist you need to check FIRST's updates. They got rid of the 6ft limit. You can go as high as you want at any point on the field. The only limit is the overpass and the height of where you are playing

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Haha, this is my first year on the team, so my friends and I came up with some incredibly implausible stuff:
-A flechette bot: One robot unfolds into twenty, which zoom around the course getting two points for every time they cross the finish line.
-A version of metal gear rex.
-A giant snail, where the balls would be pushed through a helical shell then flicked over the hurdle.
-Me in a box.
-A fire paradox which shoots out fire then puts it out with a water gun simultaneously. For absolutely no use besides the awesome factor.
-A robot with a harpoon gun to pull balls off the hurdle.
And of course, every robot has onboard speakers playing Metallica. As per design instructions.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

"The Iron Curtain" - A robot that pulls an entire sheet over your opponent's viewing area. The most un-GP robot you could ever build...it's not even really funny. hahaha

We are building the Mach 5 this year.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

I don't want to be mean to freshmen but....

Apparently, in the designs of freshmen, the laws of physics do not apply and neither do the relative forces of motors. Also, we are going to use pneumatics to repeatedly launch the balls over overpasses from ground level. :D

-vivek

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

The craziest is a penguin styled robot. Lol. I have no idea that would work.

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

hahahahahahaa
(kinda an inside joke)

Re: Silly and ridiculous robot designs.
 

Making a wooden trebuchet robot would be pretty cool...

After looking at the pink team's 'teaser', it may actually be a viable strategy.