[EricH]

Originally Posted by Partiot Force

Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately, I am at home right now so I can not take pictures of the robot. I will try and do so tomorrow and post what we come up with. I thought of using either the 2.5 CIM motor and we also have a mini CIM motor.

You don't want to do that. Typical recommendation is that 4 of the 2.5 CIMs go to drivetrain; the MiniCIM could work but will almost certainly be too fast without gearing. I'd suggest a window motor instead, or maybe better, AM2235 (snow blower motor), which can be paired with AM2279 (a hub) to attach with your custom drum.

I reread rule 34 and can see a little gray area there where we could use the spring.

That's not a gray area. It's black and white: You can store energy at the start of the match by "deformation of robot parts", AKA springs.

I'm curious how we could make the winch lift and lower the goal post.

You'll need a couple of extra pulleys for the cable routing, but it's actually not that hard. Tie the ends of the cable to opposite sides of the goal post apparatus so that one pulls down and one pulls up. The winch goes somewhere in the middle, with a few wraps around the drum.

I'm thinking of making a pulley myself out of wood, say a 2-1/2 circle made out of oak and then two 3" circles out of thin plywood and gluing them together. I could bevel a hole on the outside edge of the inner circle before gluing everything together. I would then file a slot on the inside bore for the 2mm key and make the inside bore a press fit onto the output shaft of the motor.

The reason why fabrication is difficult is that this is our first year with no experience and very, very limited tools and materials.

That sounds like it could work. Again, though, I'd suggest taking a look at the AndyMark hubs, as noted above. Make sure you've got enough thickness for your cable, whatever it happens to be, to lay down nicely.

As a suggestion... It might be to your advantage to glue a couple of pieces together first, and use a holesaw to do the circles.