Quote:
Originally Posted by DavisDad
I looked at power requirements for a blower @ 750 CFM and 40 inWC (~1.5 PSI) --> 20 HP ballpark. Yikes!
That would require something like sketch below. I think this is getting to complicated and error prone. I'm abandoning this idea...
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That sounds prudent. The use of compressed air, blowers, or even vacuum often sounds like a good way to move game pieces around. The problem is that compressed air is expensive to make. And I mean expensive in time, energy, space, and weight. This problem is even more apparent if all your power comes from a modest 12 volt battery. Take a look at the compressors used to power pneumatic tools in even a small industrial shop sometimes. They need to be quite large and powerful to keep up with even a few small tools. Pneumatics (or blowers in this case) can be a good choice to do some things on a battery powered robot. Just be very aware of the limitations and only apply them when the "expense" works out.
Your approach of applying some simple estimation techniques to see if your concept is practical is a common and valuable technique in any engineering discipline. Too often people want to cling to an initial concept that does not hold up to this type of analysis and insist on wasting time with prototypes to prove to themselves it won't work. The short build season in FIRST emulates the real world pressures engineering teams often face. The ability to brain storm and quickly come up with a bunch of good ideas for a robot seems like an important skill to succeed here. But equally if not more important is the ability to quickly sort through those ideas to find the few that are actually practical given all the other constraints of the competition.