Carbon Fiber is allowed this year since there's no ban on exotic materials like previous years. As long as you can account for it in your $3500 limit you can us it.
Our hook is more than just a hook. For those of you who were at the New Jersey regional you know what I'm talking about. It is aluminum tube (1"x1") cut and tig welded together with four 90 degree bends (two per side) that actually make two points to hook on to. Inside these hooks are two rollers, one on each side, connected by a timing belt to each other. This belt and the pulleys ride on the bar. Connected to one of the pulleys is a sprocket and a chain going to another sprocket and a motor on top of the hook. Once the arm is extended with two pneumatic cylinders the hook reaches over the bar and the cylinders are then retracted pulling us up. Now here's the fun part, when another robot goes for the bar, we just activate the motor and our robot still hooked and hanging can move sideways back and forth across the bar to block the opponents chance of hanging. There's a photo of our hook in the "Pics from NJ", the first column second photo down.
www.pbase.com/sscamatt/robot...ew jersey day 1
[EDIT] I'm having problems getting the link to work. "jersey day 1" is also part of the link but I can't get it included. If you go to the "General Forum" then to "Pics from NJ" click the link in the first post our robot hook is shown in the first column second pic down. And if anyone knows how to make the link work please let me know.[EDIT]