Best Lift Design for Logomotion?

[Jstack14]

Simple… Post which type of lift design you think is best, it can be your teams or another’s. Feel free to post the same idea as someone else; I just want to see what other people are thinking! Keep this thread clean of bashing on other teams design please!

My choice...

I personally like my teams lift design the best (biased I know) We did a forklift style lift powered by two r550 bane bots motors through a cim-u-lator and a 12:1 reduction. Our lift is made of three layers of two 80/20 bars spaced an inch apart. The first and second stage go to the top of max starting spec (5ft), and the third stage simply is used to attach out grabber and slides freely on the second stage. Our lift is mounted in the dead center of our robot and our arm pivots 90 degrees and can pick tubes up off the ground. We can reach the top row +. We milled Delrin sliders to fit in the groves of our 80/20 and when all of the stages are engaged it only takes 15lbs of force to raise our lift. We used our lathe to turn our own pulleys and created a system to catch the rope incase it jumps a pulley keeping our friction low. We not only have a power up, but also a power down and a super simple tightening system. This allows our lift to be raised and lowered in well under 2 seconds without jumping pulleys. Being a student built and designed team, we are so proud of what we learned this year. Our mentor’s definitely guided us along the way, but us students are so proud of not only designing a solid robot, but also taking advantage of the new machines (mill and lathe) which our school got this year. We have made one of our best robot’s to date!

[Cory]

How could anyone know which is best, given that nobody has competed yet and only about 50 robots have been posted on Chief?

[Chris27]

Originally Posted by Cory

and only about 50 robots have been posted on Chief?

You're right, this is a problem. Why don't you make it 51?

Whatever works best! Our team uses a few arms, and an internal gripper, and though it's not as fast as some of the elevators and roller grippers I've seen on CD, but it's good enough to make it through regionals, which is something amazing for Team 256. We haven't been the best team for the past few years, but ever since I became a Freshman (this year), I've made sure the team does better! Back to the lift design, every robot I've seen uses an elevator/forklift like design, so I think our unique design will differ than everyone else's. In a competition where everybody has similar robots, a unique robot that works in a different way than the others, and cannot be blocked in the same way others can has an advantage. I personally think the BEST lift design is the most unique design.

[theprgramerdude]

Our team uses.... drumroll... ONE ARM! That's right, one whole arm! The best part is that it's only powered up and town; our tube handling mechanisms (really just one long extension of the arm) are all passive. Plus, we can hit any rack. Oh, and it's made out of PVC pipe.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude

Our team uses.... drumroll... ONE ARM! That's right, one whole arm! The best part is that it's only powered up and town; our tube handling mechanisms (really just one long extension of the arm) are all passive. Plus, we can hit any rack. Oh, and it's made out of PVC pipe.

I am very intrigued by a passive tube mechanism.

[Taylor]

We've got both a passive tube mechanism and a simply driven lift mechanism.


While this does pivot up & down, it does not grasp the game pieces in any way. We have yet to produce a situation in which we lose posession of the game objects.


These pulleys and cables are on the front (non-driven) side of our lift. They're tensioned in such a way that when we drive up & down the middle sections (sections 2&5), the inner sections (3&4) rise up twice as quickly. This allows us to mount our drive belts to the outer sections (1&6) which are statically mounted to our frame.
From 0:06 to 0:11 you get a decent view of the belt drive that lifts the whole assembly.
It's powered by a FP motor.
The assembly uses 1010 8020 with the roller wheel & bracket assembly.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Chris27

You're right, this is a problem. Why don't you make it 51?

I second this motion!

[klmx30302]

Our teams elevator is sort of similar to the one above. we used 1010 80/20 pieces to make a 4 stage elevator. It is driven with a rs550 with a 64:1 transmission. We used small pulleys and small woven Kevlar thread (i don't remember the name of it).

For a manipulator we used a gripper made of hockey stick, Lexan and some grip material that we were going to use for minibot wheels. the gripper is pneumatically actuated and is driven by a fisherprice motor and powerwheels transmission.
Here is a video of the robot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tLr-NjTA-E
And there are some pictures here:
http://public.fotki.com/mhsFIRST/201.../build-season/

[Jstack14]

I am more interested in peoples opinons and really just what types are out there. Just a fun post giving people to share their ideas...

[Jstack14]

Sipmle and sweet! I like it. Do you have pictures or a video?

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude

Our team uses.... drumroll... ONE ARM! That's right, one whole arm! The best part is that it's only powered up and town; our tube handling mechanisms (really just one long extension of the arm) are all passive. Plus, we can hit any rack. Oh, and it's made out of PVC pipe.

[theprgramerdude]

Originally Posted by Jstack14

Sipmle and sweet! I like it. Do you have pictures or a video?

Sadly, no. However, Duluth is a week two event, so hopefully I can post it by then.

The attached drawing should provide a rough explanation. (Not to scale)

The winch consists of two window motors hooked up to a drum. The main bar going up is made of ~1/8" thick ~1" wide aluminum bar, and the PVC pipe varies around 1" in diameter, and the thickness is pretty beefy, although I doubt it weighs more than 10 pounds max, which is maybe twice that of the bar. A potentiometer allows us set a PID loop to set the arm angle to the correct height every time in under two seconds, although it goes from a full drop to maximum height in about half a second. And yes, we can hit all three levels.

[Paul West]

My team does something quite similar. Our arm uses the same two-window drum at the back, but the arm telescopes 3 feet and the end hook doesn't rotate. It hits all three levels and uses a pot to get to the the correct hight for each peg. The arm is made of a professional steel slider with the telescope powered by a banebots and belt drive. The telescoping piece is 1/8" thick x1" wide angle.

[s_forbes]

Interesting how this has quickly turned into a "my team did this" thread... though I'm not surprised.

After all the work we've gone through, I'm thinking that an elevator type manipulator is the simplest approach to this year's challenge, even with the 60" rule lifted. Not the approach we took, but probably the cleanest.

Even so, it's not the robot with the 'best' lift design that you'll remember... It's the robot with the most unique design. 148 stands out in this category by a mile. But as mentioned above, not many bots have been posted yet.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

Interesting how this has quickly turned into a "my team did this" thread... though I'm not surprised.

Wasn't that the intent of this thread?