pic: Robot-Week1

[Brad Voracek]

loading photo ...

[Kyle]

Wow, please give some specifics!

[Brad Voracek]

Well, wide chassis w/ 4 wheel skid steering, all powered. Obviously the drive isn't installed yet.. right now it's on a test robot w/ our electronics guys.

We plan on a conveyor type system to run between those wood panels, and feed the huge hopper (we estimate it holds around 20 balls), then a front panel on the hopper will drop and (the hopper will have an agitator) the balls will drop out...

If you check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcjl8nWDzmo at around 0:32 is a little clip of how we plan to coveyor the balls up.

[NoahTheBoa]

Originally Posted by Brad Voracek

Well, wide chassis w/ 4 wheel skid steering, all powered. Obviously the drive isn't installed yet.. right now it's on a test robot w/ our electronics guys.

We plan on a conveyor type system to run between those wood panels, and feed the huge hopper (we estimate it holds around 20 balls), then a front panel on the hopper will drop and (the hopper will have an agitator) the balls will drop out...

If you check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcjl8nWDzmo at around 0:32 is a little clip of how we plan to coveyor the balls up.

How is the front panel going to drop? You might want to be careful about extending past the bumper perimeter.

[Brad Voracek]

Originally Posted by NoahTheBoa

How is the front panel going to drop? You might want to be careful about extending past the bumper perimeter.

Don't worry, we've taken that into consideration... It's probably going to be just like a guillotine like gate, that swings down.

i can't explain it... But just half a half circle that starts up like a n then swings around to the bottom like a u. The top of the u/the bottom of the n is there the bottom of the hopper is... if that makes sense. pivoting around the bottom of the hopper.

[RyanB]

I have a question about the tabs sticking out from the hopper, are they to "grab" balls of to sort the out as in a peg board, so they dont get jammed. or if both ideas are wrong what is thier purpose. I like were the direction of the robot is going. Also what kind of rope/ tubeing are you using for the conveyor.

[Woody1458]

I would suggest putting some kind of large pipe on those thin rods because what ever you use as belting will grip more onto a larger surface and it won't slip on the balls (This breaks the basic idea that surface area doesn't effect friction because the surfaces actually aren't parallel so each point has a separate force, kinda weird but ya)

[Brad Voracek]

Originally Posted by RyanB

I have a question about the tabs sticking out from the hopper, are they to "grab" balls of to sort the out as in a peg board, so they dont get jammed. or if both ideas are wrong what is thier purpose. I like were the direction of the robot is going. Also what kind of rope/ tubeing are you using for the conveyor.

Those are actually just cleco's (spelling?), holding the hopper together until we rivet it all tight. Hehe.

Some 1" surgical tubing from McMaster has been ordered... We've used it with success.

Originally Posted by Woody1458

I would suggest putting some kind of large pipe on those thin rods because what ever you use as belting will grip more onto a larger surface and it won't slip on the balls (This breaks the basic idea that surface area doesn't effect friction because the surfaces actually aren't parallel so each point has a separate force, kinda weird but ya)

Planning on it... If we had everything done in the picture what would we do with the other 5 weeks! (plus 40 pounds to build whatever we want for 3 weeks after that... stupid new rule)

But, we've been joking that I'd post another picture like this after week 5 and it would just show a crate and an empty shop... We all know that won't happen though

[robodude03]

Aww Brad you beat me to the post

Oh BTW our new website has been posted with some other pictures of our bot during week 1. Check us out at:

www.team399.org

[tim_reiher]

How far deep inside your bumper perimeter is that mechanism going to be?

I'm just asking, because I feel you ought to make sure to that that wouldn't have an off chance of being considered a wedge.

You're making good progress, though. Keep at it.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Brad Voracek

We plan on a conveyor type system to run between those wood panels, and feed the huge hopper (we estimate it holds around 20 balls), then a front panel on the hopper will drop and (the hopper will have an agitator) the balls will drop out...

Careful with the hopper....

If you thought poof balls jammed easily... well... have I got a suprise for you

See y'all in Davis!

[davidfv]

Well I thought I would beat all you guys to the punch this week...

Check out the Team399 Videos for this week.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cevTV399
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isP11...eature=related

Have fun!!!

[techsupport07]

I saw you were using surgical tubing in the video...we used that in 2006 for the poof balls. It worked quite well, except we would have to change the tubing every so often because it would rip or start to rip. We just got some new type of tubuing yesterday that we are going to use...can't remember what it is called, but it has the same effect that the surgical tubing did, but it is much much stronger!

[Lakedaimon]

This looks a lot taller than 60". Is it?