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Re: Fork type End Defectors & Ball acquisition
1885 Used Straight forks and 2 arced "paws" that come down over the ball. The arcs extend over the top crest of the ball to keep it from coming out the front, and they are angled sideways to keep them from coming out the sides. They are actuated to "pounce" on a big ball o' yarn via a 4" pneumatic piston. (edit) Capturing the ball via this method actually worked very well; we had issues with a weak motor on the lift that prevented us from hurdling well, but that will be fixed in Philly.
We had a huge problem with our forks at VCU because they were, by design, supposed to stick out the front of the bot for the entirety of the match. However whenever we ran into the wall all of the impact force was transferred up to the forlift arm mounts. By the end of Friday, all of the welds on that mount were completely broken and any chance of hurdling was practically gone.
We have plans to upgrade this in Philly with a 2" wide 1/8" thick lexan piece that we bend around to make a semi-circle. Prototyping it suggests that the lexan may wear out in the course of the matches, so we're going to work on an upgrade for that before Atlanta. The lexan should absorb any wall impact the forklift receives instead of transferring it to the mount points, which is the goal for Philly. The inspiration came from 2106 (Junkyard Dogs) at VCU.
Last edited by JesseK : 24-03-2008 at 15:58.
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