pic: Beachbot 2008
 

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At first glance you reminded me of the thunder chickens. At second glance it looks very nice and different, great job.

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Very nice! Should be a lot of fun at LA

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very slick robot, simple and effective

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Gotta love PVC arms. See you in Atlanta :)

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I hope...they aren't signed up yet this year. Then again, they weren't last year at this time...

I really like the position indicators on the herding arms.

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Anyone thinking 254 2004 with this one?

The lower tusks remind me of the ball herding legs that popped out on that bot.

Looks slick.

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True, but I was thinking more along the lines of 330 2005.

Actually, I have a question too. Could you guys hold 2 balls at once?

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I think we have a winner--it looks like 330 2005/2007 for the base with 254/60 2004 on the gripper. (BTW, I think the drivebase teaser for this robot was a bit of a bluff. The other teaser is in plain view.)

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Looks like they'd be able to. Totally illegally, of course.

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33% faster than last year? Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. Last year the Beachbots dominated the field with their extraordinary speed. I remember being in awe of how quickly they moved across the field, now I can only imagine what it will be like this year. Great job om another simple and elegant design!

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This looks like it will be another very effective arm-type hurdling robot (the other being the Thunderchickens). It seems that simplicity really is the key here; I predict that single jointed arms will outperform any super-articulated ones.

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This is the first time I've seen it in action this year...Nice job guys and good luck! =)

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How are you going to knock of the balls?

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Forwards: Poke with arm.
or
Backwards: Pop them out from underneath.

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And how good/fast does he do it?
What is your hybrid plan?

BTW, i liked your speed racer :P

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Haha, thanks.

Pops it off pretty quick, and is fairly consistent. Hybrid: Last I knew, the plan was to run a lap, and knock a ball off - maybe two.

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There are a couple of reasons this robot will be really good this year:

1. Beachbot's drivers are always amazing.
2. The fact that the lower arms can corral the ball and the upper arms can pick it up while moving will be incredibly helpful.

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Amazing design and execution guys - I've seen what you've done in the past, and you might have even outclassed yourselves. Awesome robot, hope you do well!

One question (and this was the main problem for a number of robots at week 1 regionals - or maybe just St. Louis), but from the video, it looks like when you hit the overpass with the arm and let go of the trackball with the hand, you're in a position to be "clotheslined". Any ideas on avoiding this?

217 (the ever-powerful ThunderChickens) impressed everyone with their "slam dunks": they (from what I saw) could disengage their arm so that the force from hitting the overpass flipped the arm backwards so they could drive under the overpass safely (a dog gear or something like that was my guess - never got the chance to ask them myself). Probably not much help for you, since it doesn't look like you guys can rotate the arm past vertical to the back, but just a thought. Might want to watch out for that.

Anyway, you guys have a great design (I never would have thought of two arms organized like that) and best of luck to you in your regionals and championship!

[I apologize for the novel here, just a thoughtdump more than anything.]

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Thanks for the compliments.

We've hit the overpass in high gear going as fast as the robot will go, and even though it does close-line, it does not fall over backwards. The wheels still stay on the ground enough to backup the base. If need be, we can hurdle backwards as well.

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I foresee a regional victory this weekend.

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The rugby player video is the best. Playing the Rocky video. Everyone needs to see that, its hilarious. The robot definatly won that battle
Joey

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Ah, cool. Just a thought. Any worries about being bumped by passing robots adding to the tipping? Chances of falling on your back are probably slim, though. Hah, what am I saying? Your robot can withstand a rugby player kick - more than I can say about myself. :D

Good luck, and I'm excited to see you guys in Atlanta!

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Another amazing robot from the guys ( and girls) from Hope Chapel. I'm really looking forward to this weekend.

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We can pick ourselves up from any direction we might fall, using either the herder, the arm, or both.

We still have to qualify for Atlanta (and then fundraise).

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:yikes: WOW! its sooo.. simple yet so efficient see you in la. whats the max fps you guys can do?

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We are doing 6.5fps in low and 15fps in high.

There is most of the information on our robot here, http://team330.org/?q=content/2008-robot-unveiled

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Not to hijack the thread, but I just wanted to make a note here. Although we originally had a dog gear clutch designed in the arm gearbox (good guess haha), we found it was easier to just time a simultaneous release the ball + stop the drive momentarily + start pulling back the arms. I'm sure that after practice 330 will adopt a similar strategy.

Tip coming from someone who did just that at STL - the crowd will looovvve it :) We had people coming up to us all day, "that was soo cool how you picked yourselves up" etc.

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Another awsome bot from THE BEACH BOTS!!!!! From your 2007 Currie Championship partners and IRI partners. Good luck this weekend and the rest of the year. Hope to see you in Atlanta and IRI. Mark

Re: pic: Beachbot 2008
 

We get inspiration from a lot of teams, 254, 60, and especially 71 (and probably a bunch more that I'm forgetting).

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Actually the gripper looks more inline with 60's 01 gripper
They were using 3 prong in 04, although the base prongs are pretty similar to the 04 bot.

And I'm looking forwards to seeing it compete this weekend.

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That's exactly what we want to do, but it does take practice :)

We got entangled and pulled over in the elims at LA in 2005, and got back up. It definitely is a crowd pleaser. We'd rather avoid that happening, however ;-)

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How were you able to bend PVC in such nice arcs? We've always had to kink it little by little, and we've always had a horrible time with anything larger than 3/4" dia.

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On the bottom herder, we put the PVC on the robot, then heated it, then we placed a ball in front of it and bent it to the right angle (At least thats one of the ways we tried... Not sure if we did that on the competition robot).

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But you still get a 10-point penalty for being outside 80 inches. :(

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The arm/gripper looks almost exactly like 1038's 2007 arm/gripper

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27725

1038 probably used the same design for their 2008 robot also...

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Is that a 1.5" bore or 2" bore that you have for the gripper..I assume 2"??

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Looks too small for a 2" cylinder, plus that isn't exactly 330's style. I'll go with 1.5". (Last year's was a 3/4", but this looks bigger.)

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I really would not want to get squeezed by that robot. I would probably pinch off into 2 distinct pieces.

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Nice guess on the dog gear, but as Grant said we left that strategy for just plain old timing in the driver's box. ;) *high-fives Grant*

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1.5"

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I loled so hard when I saw our robot on there.

See you tomorrow. :)

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Ah, really? Great minds think alike, eh? :D Your arm was just so fast, it looked like it was just falling back. :3 Nice design, guys, and some awesomely consistent driving.

Sorry, didn't mean to totally divert attention from 330 (who are looking to be amazing). Someone mentioned violating 80" rule when lifting yourself back up... Do you? (I can't see a way to really get around that - but I'm sure you can more than make up the 10 point penalty with that monster of a robot.)

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The way I understand it, they would have to if they fell front-to-back (arm swings over), and maybe side-to side as well. But they can make it up, given enough time.

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If they fell side to side they might get away with it. If it's front to back (like ours was) it's definitely a violation though.

But which would you take, a 10 pt penalty or one less hurdle?