Building a claw post-ship

[somenerd]

My team's robot is coming together, and it looks like we could bag a working robot on ship day (if we wanted to). We will have a mechanism (an arm with a rather simplistic hook) completed, as well as a functioning 6 wheel skid drive.
We plan to keep the control system (cRIO, jaguars, sidecar, etc mounted on a plywood board) to give our programmers a bit more time to refine the code.
I was thinking about using the rest of our withholding allowance and the time between ship and our only competition (DC regional) to give some of the team a chance to develop a claw that they had been pushing for. We used a length of 80/20 for the arm, so attaching a possible claw onto the arm should not be too difficult (although I am an electrical person).
Good idea? Or terrible plan?

[548swimmer]

Sounds like a good plan to me. The only concerns would be with adding too much weight on the end of the arm and being unable to move the arm as a result. The only other issue (and I don't view this as a problem) is this being considered " un-GP." In my eyes, the period between ship date and competition was made a legal build period for a reason, and you should be allowed to take full advantage of that time.

[MrForbes]

Do you have a plan for controlling the claw? If you're adding another motor or other device to actuate it, do you think you can make it work quickly enough at the regional to be able to practice using your robot? Same with programming...sure, you can work on code without the electronics installed on the robot, but how will you make it work right once you put it all back together? Unless you have another whole robot to test the code with between ship and comp, you'll probably end up making it worse.

You might be better off finishing the robot as well as you can, and spend a few days practicing using it, and fixing any bugs you find in the code, and maybe getting it to do something in autonomous.

[somenerd]

Originally Posted by squirrel

Do you have a plan for controlling the claw? If you're adding another motor or other device to actuate it, do you think you can make it work quickly enough at the regional to be able to practice using your robot? Same with programming...sure, you can work on code without the electronics installed on the robot, but how will you make it work right once you put it all back together? Unless you have another whole robot to test the code with between ship and comp, you'll probably end up making it worse.

You might be better off finishing the robot as well as you can, and spend a few days practicing using it, and fixing any bugs you find in the code, and maybe getting it to do something in autonomous.

I'm going to these very same questions to the students working on the claw. They seem have a good grasp on how they wish to go about the mechanism but I do have some reservations.
We can rig up another arm to practice with between ship and the regional. Its not ideal, but I think it would work.
There's not much our programming team can make worse, unless they somehow break TankDrive.
I'm trying to keep my team productive between Feb 22 and March 24. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. We will be borrowing a Minibot from a FTC team.

[Chris is me]

Let 'em do it. If the kids want to put in the extra effort of continuous improvement, you should encourage it.

[MrForbes]

I find that a few weeks of catching up on homework (and sleep) is a good way to fill the time between ship and competition.

Oh....sorting out the extra parts....what you want to take, what you want to leave behind. Getting tools organized. Figuring out how to do scouting.

There are lots of things to do.

[Hawiian Cadder]

I think that might be pushing the "upgrade" section of the rules, our rule of thumb is that if it adds any electronics or coding then it is questionable, we are using the withholding allowance for some better wheels, possibly an upgraded roller for our grabber, but not much else.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Hawiian Cadder

I think that might be pushing the "upgrade" section of the rules, our rule of thumb is that if it adds any electronics or coding then it is questionable,

By no means is it pushing any rules - it is explicitly permitted.

[Akash Rastogi]

It is allowed and encouraged. Have your team run with it.

[Dustin Shadbolt]

We might do the same. If the kids want to, I would let them do it.

There is nothing against the rules about doing this btw. If anything, it might be encouraged. It shows that the kids can improve on designs and pick out key parts of a design.

[Hawiian Cadder]

agreed, but the point of first is to build a robot in 6 weeks. building a robot and a lift, but not having a claw, is not a robot, it is 2/3 of a robot. i would make sure to have something on the robot, it sounds to me like you plan to simply bring your completed claw, the Manuel says "replacements or upgrades" if it is added without replacing anything then it does not fall into that category.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Just so that everyone is on the same page here.

WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE – a limited amount of FABRICATED ITEMS that are withheld from the shipping requirements (specified in the 2011 FRC Administrative Manual, Section 5) and retained by the team following the shipping deadlines.

And...

<R24> During the period between ship date and the competitions, all teams may manufacture SPARE, REPLACEMENT, and UPGRADE PARTS, and develop software for their ROBOT at their home facility.
Teams may continue development of any items retained under the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE during this period, and then bring them to the competition events.

Please note: This is a reference to items fabricated by your team prior to ship. While you may prototype and plan items for use on your robot, fabrication may take place only at events after the ship date. If in doubt, please ask the Q&A or First for verification.