[Nathan Streeter]

You guys had an absolutely fantastic robot; thank you very much for sharing through this resource!

The 254-style of very elegant, clean, box-oriented mechanical design makes your robots look deceptively simple... but let no one confuse elegant either for 'easy,' for not being full of design time/thought, or for not having complicated components.

I am intrigued as to what motivated you to use your particular elevator drive setup... I can see why a setup with 2 RS775's geared very fast with a pneumatic brake for holding is more 'mechanically ideal', but it seems like similar performance could be attained with a CIM (or two) at higher reliability and with less complexity. Was the elevator speed needed with the weight/CG of the RS775 solution? It doesn't seem like the power draw of a non-braking solution would've been too bad. Am I just standing on the other side of the 'elite powerhouse' line where the difference between an elevator at 5.85fps and one at 3fps is highly significant?

Also, am I correctly understanding the design that the elevator carriages were driven from only the right or left side (i.e., only from the right for the RC-carriage and only from the left side for the tote-carriage)? I see 4 long, vertical belts on each side which would make me think otherwise, but I don't see how the power for each carriage is transmitted to both right and left on the elevator gearbox.

Fabulous design and execution! Tough ending at CMP, but everyone obviously still has the utmost regard for Deadlift!