Hey guys,
Our team just decided which mechanism we're going to use to score today, and here are some photos of one of our prototypes.
The system is actually very ingenious. There is a spinning wheel at the front of the robot, just high enough above the ground so that it drives over innertubes but not completely over. Imagine it as your shoe when you step on the innertube. It kicks up, right? Well that's what we're going for here. The wheel kicks the innertube up and over the waiting arms of our hook, then the inner tube hits a flip switch once it's reached the optimum angle. The wheel reverses and our arm lifts it up! Whamo! You picked up an innertube in 2 seconds.
Plus, the wheel auto-centers the innertube. Very useful for the driver!
Here are some pictures of the wheel design (remember, they're prototypes, so forgive the rough edges!):
We mounted the arm, and it interfaced with the wheel perfectly. You can see here that the innertube gets kicked up at the perfect angle for our hooks to pick it up. The arm is controlled by humans in this shot, but the wheel is completely motorized!
It's worth mentioning our innovative end effector design. We wanted to use something fast, something efficient, and easy to repair on the fly. Our design uses two rods of aluminum long enough so that they can reach deep into a spider and despoil a far spoiler, without hitting the big fat "O" on the spider leg! Check it out.
The hooks are not static objects; they are swinging, and they're limited in their rotation so that they don't flip and get caught on the spiders (in case you were wondering). We tried our arm many times, and it's very fast. We call it the "slam dunker" because it lets you go up to any spider leg and simply SLAM DUNK that innertube right on there! The flexible aluminum rods split farther apart, conforming to the shape of the "O," getting around its interference to our scoring.
SLAM DUNK!
So in the end, this prototype has many advantages:
1. It's light. The arm is single jointed, and its hooks are available at any OSH store.
2. The wheel is useful. It sets the arm up for a perfect grab every time, and it's bloody fast.
3. A bunch of others!
We hope you like our prototype design.
Good luck teams! We hope you like our idea!