Minibot help
 

I was just wondering how some teams get their minibot up the pole so fast.
Our minibot climbs the pole in 6-7 seconds. We currently have one wheel running off of two motors. Any tips or advice?

Re: Minibot help
 

take off those gearboxes, attach tetrix shaft onto the motors, wrap it with latex tubing, and use magnets. you should get under 2 secs

Re: Minibot help
 

Ok thanks. Use magnets for what?

Re: Minibot help
 

Attatching to the pole.

Re: Minibot help
 

oh srry i am not a build so i ask stupid questions like that

Re: Minibot help
 

^ pretty much

Re: Minibot help
 

Play around with the gears in the gear box and play around with taking the gearbox off

Re: Minibot help
 

we dont have a gearbox we just have 2 gears

Re: Minibot help
 

The motors come with a pre-attached gearbox. Did you take that off?

Re: Minibot help
 

theguyz, perhaps you want to reduce the weight and not use wheels

Re: Minibot help
 

I think they did take off the gearboxes because when I saw the motors they didnt have any on them. we reduced the weight of the minibot to around 5-6lbs

Re: Minibot help
 

hmmm, trim the weight if you want a faster minibot, but if it works and remain consistent, its still competitive.

Re: Minibot help
 

Ok thanks for all the advice

Re: Minibot help
 

Umm...what kind of magnets can we use?

Re: Minibot help
 

I would suggest magnetic ones.:p

There aren't any restrictions on types of magnet in <R92>. As such, any type is fair game--just use caution if it's mounted on something; whatever it's mounted on also needs to be legal.

Re: Minibot help
 

neodymium magnets

Re: Minibot help
 

And deployment, use 1 movement. In week 1 lots of mini-bots hit a snag after there 1st deployment motion (i.e. mechanism flips down mini-bot shot forward then UP, the mini-bot would not shoot out) in conclusion Less moving parts=the better, and less room for error =)

Re: Minibot help
 

Team 3680 is having a similar problem with those "latex rod" minibots.

We constructed a minibot with 1/2" OD aluminum rods, attached surgical tubing on them, but the minibot does not seem to want to climb the pole. The rods just run at the base of the pole with no effect.

We were looking into traction issues- do the rods have to have a very snug/tight fit around the pole?

Re: Minibot help
 

Your rods are far too big and as a result you're stalling your motors (they do not have the torque necessary to lift the robot). Try smaller.

Your problem isn't caused by this (probably not a tight enough fit) but I thought I'd mention it.

Re: Minibot help
 

Can we use custom made spacers on the minibot?

Re: Minibot help
 

If the raw material they are fabricated from is listed as an allowable material in R92 they should be legal.

Re: Minibot help
 

So we should be able to machine any parts as long as the material are allowed

Re: Minibot help
 

Lighter is faster as we found out. If you look at Waves, it's very light and it has NO WHEELS! It just has rubber tubes on shafts to drive it up.

Re: Minibot help
 

A few questions...
How fast? Any problems with amount of cantilever you had on shafts? Is the blue tubing some kind of fatter surgical tubing?

Re: Minibot help
 

It was very fast but it did fall off a few times. This isn't our minibot it's Wave's but we almost used it. As to the material, I am not sure. It's some kind of rubber tube.

Re: Minibot help
 

I don't recall our mini-bot ever falling off of the pole (well maybe once).... we had a couple of issues with deployment (which is worked out), but that was never really due to the mini-bot.........