[Travis Covington]

As of 6:00 am this morning it is no longer top heavy. (never really was, but it definitely isn’t now)

The bars are 30mm tube approximately 1/6th of an inch thick (welded and powder-coated)

The arms and grabbing mechanism is about 15 pounds total.

The chassis is very heavy weighing in at around 80 pounds it self (that puts the CG, when driving normally, currently at about 8 inches off the ground

If you really think about it, the only weight that is up high are the vertical supports and the tube frame (4-bar linkage). As we raise boxes of course it becomes top heavy, the boxes weigh 4.5 pounds a piece!! But we do not lift the boxes until we are directly in front of the stack we want to place the boxes on.

In regards to the question about the boxes not being perfectly stacked straight upright. We have a rotation device on the grabber that allows us to spin the box to the correct orientation.

And again in defense of our robot, as Lindy said, it tipped twice due to driver error.

The first time because we were trying to push the boxes over and jerked the joystick in reverse while being pushed by a robot and a stack of boxes...

The second time was even more so driver error where we simply jerked the joystick in the wrong direction causing the robot to tip and then fall.

Currently we are adding wheelie bars, which will completely prevent our robot from even coming close to tipping

In regards to the feasibility and practicality of stacking boxes... you have to remember that QP's are what get you into finals...
The higher the stack the higher the multiplier and the more points you get (win or loss).

You can argue and criticize but this is supposed to be fun, you guys don't need to argue to my team about a robot you know nothing about.

I am happy to answer questions but please don’t jump to conclusions.

This is my 6th year with a FIRST robotics. 4 years in high school and 2 years now with my current team as a Mechanical Engineering student in college. I would like to think I know what I am talking about.

Thanks for the positive feedback.