team 909's robot

[Brad Lanpher]

[Brad Lanpher]

So what do you think of our robot?

[Kyle]

Looks really good, what is the total height of the arm? how much does it weigh?

Do you have anything to stop the bot from tipping over?

[Brad Lanpher]

The arm has a total height of 15 feet and the robot weighs 118 lbs. Surprisingly we do not have a problem of tipping over, even with two tetras on the end of the arm. The robot has less then .5 inch ground clearance and the center of gravity is low to the ground when the arm is in.

[Stephen P]

Man, that is some crazy engineering. My question, though, is whether it will be practical during normal match conditions. It seems that extending that thing would take alot of time and skillful maneuvering to stack a tetra, and would be very hard while facind defence.

[jts]

Originally Posted by Stephen P

Man, that is some crazy engineering. My question, though, is whether it will be practical during normal match conditions. It seems that extending that thing would take alot of time and skillful maneuvering to stack a tetra, and would be very hard while facind defence.

It takes just as long for our driver to get from the loading station to the center goal as it does for the arm to get set into position. In other words, it really doesn't take all that long. We've never come close to tipping and we've tried. Certainly having another robot in the arena changes things slightly, but on our own we can't make it tip, which does say something for itself.