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Unread 15-01-2010, 13:03
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Re: MERGED: Universal Hanging System/Standardized Partner Suspension

Quote:
Originally Posted by thefro526 View Post
Seconded. I would also suggest making it a very bright color that's easy to see from 15 feet away or so.

And just some food for thought, there are going to be a lot of teams that aren't going to be sold on hanging from your robot, I for one am completely opposed to the idea of trusting anyone enough to attempt to hang their 150lb (yes I said 150lbs, 120lb robot + 13lbs + 15lbs bumpers = ~150lbs) robot from our robot and vice versa, so you're going to have to sell whatever hanging mechanism you have to your alliance and prove that it has a safe working load of 300lbs for two robots and 450lbs for three robots.
To be safe, ALWAYS double your maximum working load. If you're lifting a 150 lb robot, you need to design it to safely lift 300 lbs. For 2 robots, 600 lbs. For 3 robots, 900 lbs.

Designing a system that can lift that much weight is going to be a pretty hard task with the materials provided. On the other hand, lifting yourself isn't nearly as hard - and with an appropriate locking mechanism in place, you can hold much more weight than your motors could ever lift. It seems that designing a system that can first touch the tower, extend to the finale configuration, grab the bar, and lift itself up would be key - then the first robot could get into position whenever they wanted (even before the 20 second finale). The other two come up and lift onto that robot in the last 20 seconds and you're golden.