[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Dylan

... I was wondering if pneumatics are allowed on the robot. The rules do say that there is no limit on non-electric components as long as they are in "factory condition", but it does not mention pneumatics.

If they are allowed, has any one used them before? If so, what kind of success did they have?

Yes, pneumatics are allowed, as they are non-electric LEGO components.

One of the teams that I coach, Mindstorms Mayhem, used pneumatics to power the "dump mechanism" on a "dump truck" that they used in the 2005 "No Limits" challenge. To see video of this attachment in use, see the first video on the "Team Videos" page: http://www.mindstormsmayhem.org/team-videos.asp

The attachment in question is the "next-to-last" mission in the round. (FYI, the infamous "ball extractor" is also shown in the above video -- this was also the highest-scoring round at the 2005 World Festival, resulting in Mindstorms Mayhem being awarded the First Place Performance Award.)

In the video, you can also see one of the difficulties with the use of pneumatics -- since only three motors are permitted in FLL, there isn't a good way to have the pneumatic cylinders be charged by the robot without devoting the third motor to this use. The approach that Mindstorms Mayhem used was to have three pneumatic cylinders (lots of air) that were charged manually by the robot handler just prior to running the mission. If you watch the video carefully, you can see the robot handler pumping up the cylinders manually just before launching the "dump truck" on its mission. The main reason that it was decided to use the pneumatics for this mission is that the "dump truck" wasn't actually the robot -- the dump truck was powered by windup motors, and used the pneumatics for the dumping action. The dump truck was simply launched by the robot -- for that mission, the robot itself never actually left the base. This year's rules would not permit the specific approach that Mindstorms Mayhem used to solve that mission in 2005.

Other problems with the pneumatics include the fact that air leaks are very hard to track down and diagnose; the air cylinders are pretty large, and it takes a lot of air to move anything significant. That said, the pneumatics are good for some specialized tasks. The Mayhemers aren't currently planning to use pneumatics for any tasks this year, but haven't ruled it out, either...

Best Regards,
--ken