[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Rickertsen2

Sounds like the legendary 1978 Brabam BT46B Formula 1 car which used an enormous fan underneath to generate a vacuum and more normal force. The car won the one race it ever competed in but was declared illegal

Gordon Murray's Brabham was copying Jim Hall's Chapparal 2J from 1970: http://www.photoessayist.com/canam/c.../chaparral.htm. It was a Can-Am racer that used a 45hp snowmobile engine to drive two ducted fans producing 1,000 pounds of static down force. If someone can move enough air with the limited power available I don't know why this wouldn't work for a FIRST robot. In some respects FRC robots have advantages over the "sucker" racers -- a perfectly flat "road" surface and no suspensions. I don't know how to do the math (sorry, Mark) on an aerodynamics problem like this, but a pair of CIMs driving 8-12" fans mounted vertically in cylinders open on the ends might generate some significant normal force. I wouldn't think it would approach 1,000 pounds, though.

EDITED: Here's a link to a Website of a model-builder who constructs battery-powered hovercraft: http://www.model-hovercraft.com/index.html. A hovercraft is only a Lunacy robot turned upside down.

Or... how about an electric hover-lawn mower? http://www.flymo.co.uk/node3126.aspx