Quote:
Originally Posted by lynca
Great video and great looking robot !
Will you be releasing any details about the design ?
Thank you for showcasing a passive intake on your robot, really simple and reliable (less moving parts to break ! )
I like how the cutout in the frame auto-aligns totes when dropping down the next tote.
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The intake was a big deviation in our design process as Danny spoke about extensively in one of the videos during the build. We'd initially intended on using an intake mechanism to bring totes into the robot so that we could avoid having to modify the form factor of the drive base. At the point we discovered a separate mechanism would be required to score the totes it was decided that we should change direction as the value added from those two mechanisms would have been very low. There are a couple interesting lessons that come from that decision that teams can take away.
1.) Are we adding complexity to fix a shortcoming of another mechanism? If so maybe we should re-evaluate that original mechanism. (The 2007 season when I was a student on 1741 comes to mind.)
2.) You can (and should) take time to evaluate your design. If a drastic direction change is required, then you should take it. Sticking with a design just for the sake of sticking with a design is often ill advised.
We had intended on adding another passive feature to improve alignment, but due to some delays in getting the lift build and running we couldn't implement them. It is possible, as the design sits, to have a tote improperly aligned. In this case a small amount of rotation is required to correct the situation, but all in all a misalignment doesn't eat up much time.
I believe at current our plan is to release 3Dpdf files of the CAD by the end of the day. As far as questions about components, Danny details those well in the video.