[BenB]

There seems to be some confusion over the purpose of the wings on our robot, so I thought I would clarify.

They were originally designed to aid with catching. It was conveniently located to serve a dual purpose of supporting our claw in starting configuration while the robot is turned off.

The wings can be in three positions, actuated by a 3/4" bore pneumatic cylinder on each wing. When the cylinder is fully extended, the wings are open and extend ~18" outside our frame perimeter. Due to a compression spring on the cylinder rod, when the cylinders are "retracted", the wings extend ~3" outside our frame perimeter; just enough to allow the starting config hooks to move past them during match play. To put the robot in starting config, we pull the wings in further, compressing the springs around the cylinder rod and hook them onto the claw.

The damage we sustained in SF1-3 sheared the 1/4" steel cylinder rod on one of our wings, which is always completely inside our frame perimeter.