During regionals, we discovered an interesting side effect of a super-strong goal grabber; we were being lifted off the ground.
Our goal grabber is T shaped, designed to be pushed out by pneumatics, rotated through a slot, and when pulled back rotate back to pull the goal in. The only thing is, the goal grabber pulls the goal into the chassis, which has a notch cut into it that will perfectly fit the corner of a goal. It's a very nice mechanism, somewhat self-aligning if the driver screws up, but the angle on the top of the "catcher notch" wasn't perfectly aligned. Now, when we pull a goal into us, the T goes all the way back into the robot and our back wheels get lifted about a quarter of an inch off the floor.
Mechanism:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gsgisr...s/files/IT.jpg
During regionals, we manufactured aluminum wheels to replace our front wheels, and now their diameter has increased by 1/4". Is this a good thing or a bad thing? We may get lifted farther off the floor, placing all of our weight on these two new wheels that supposedly have great traction. Is this better or worse than what we had?
-Gui Cavalcanti
"Guess what!?"
"What?"
"Our alliance won the VCU regional!"
"Good lord, how did that happen?"