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Originally Posted by pakrat
That could work, but it might have to expand to get pretty large.
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The distance that the gripper would have to expand would not necessarily be very large.
In this paint sketch, the gripper configuration resembles a peace sign, with the shorter of the two arms expanding inward and outward - only a minimal distance. The actual expansion distance would not be very large - the only large thing about this arm is its height, which is not very restricted considering that the height limit for the robot (this year anyways) is a generous 60".
Here's an idea of how this gripper would look like on a robot, when the robot was picking up the hula hoop from the ground:
In the above picture, the "peace sign" gripper would center itself inside the hula hoop on the ground. Then, the two extending arms of the gripper (the short arms of the peace sign) would expand outwards (using pneumatics perhaps?), and the hula hoop would become "wedged" on to the arm.
Here's what it might look like in its upright position:
This is what the robot might look like after the hula hoop has been "wedged" between the two expanding arms and the one non-expanding arm. After being "wedged", it can be lifted up and placed anywheres. There are a whole slew of possible arm mechanisms to go along with this gripper - in the picture, I drew in two rotating joints that would be used to position the hula hoop (of course, the configuration of the arm mechanisms would depend on the game task).
If any of these ideas don't make sense to you, let me know and I will try to make it clearer. The idea behind this gripper is that there is minimal expansion required to "wedge" the hoop. Because the two extending arms of the gripper are angled, they don't have to stretch the entire diameter of the hula hoop. The third (non expanding) arm provides enough resistance for the two expanding arms to create an effective wedging mechanism.
Nice idea Mike - I really like it! Expanding off of other peoples ideas is fun.
-- Jaine