There has been a few good questions about our robot. Here are some answers.
Quote:
Originally posted by Quain
well, just a thought, but what happens if you don't get to the goals first? If you only get one goal and lift it, you have no counterweight to counterbalance...? Its look very cool though...
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You are correct that if you don't have two goals, they can't be lifted due to having no counterbalance. However, there are two answers to your question:
1) We have a third arm that wasn't yet mounted when the picture was taken. It is a spring loaded latch mechanism that is off the front of the robot. We can grab one goal using that and drag it around really well.
2) We don't really need to get to the goals first. As long as some team doesn't get there and move them apart by 10 inches before we get there, we'll still latch the goal. We think it will take a team about 1 to 2 seconds to move the goal that far apart once they get to the goals, so we think we have about a 2 second cushion to lose the race. Since we get there in a very short time, it is very unlikely that this will be a problem.
Now, once we get the goals, we lift fully off the ground quite high (we're not releasing the numbers on this yet). If the other team that gets to the goals doesn't lift, we'll have the traction and should be able to win the tug-of-war. If the other team is a lifter, they better be able to lift pretty high or we will once again get the traction and should be able to win the tug-of-war. The outsides of the goals in the picture are drooping a bit since we didn't adjust the top link yet. They are completely level when the link is adjusted.
Quote:
Originally posted by Jnadke
The question of the century is...
...how much of a beating can those arms take? If you're not willing to give the goal up. The team's just gonna take your 'arm' along for the ride.
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Our design philosophy was that our robot should be like a jet fighter landing on an aircraft carrier. We designed the arms such that we can go toward the goals at top speed and as long as we're within about 10 inches of the center-line between the two goals, we'll snag them.
The arms are designed to hit the goals while the robot is travelling at about 14 ft/sec. Unfortunately we had to temporarily remove our transmissions to save weight, but we still go pretty fast and we've tested hitting the goals at full speed with no problems.
In order to go crashing into the goals at top speed, we had to make them very strong. In light of this, I don't believe a tug-of-war with another robot will be a problem. In fact, since we lift pretty high and will have about 500 lb of downforce to push with, we hope it will be the other robot going along for the ride.
Quote:
Originally posted by Andy Baker
I have a question:
It appears that your treads are shiny... are they metal or rubber?
Take care,
Andy B.
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First, thanks for the nice words.
The treads are Kevlar reinforced urethane timing belts with aluminum cleats. I can't remember which team we got the idea from for the cleats. Would you know what team that is, Andy?
The treads work VERY well. Tons of traction, it turns REALLY fast, and we've never thrown a belt - even while we're moving with the goals lifted. We have a fancy tensioning device the should keep the treads on without much issue.
Lastly, new pictures of our robot showing a little more detail should be up on our website by noon today.
-Chris