Flywheel minibot

[Swampdude]

Imagine a hamster wheel with the FTC battery balanced longways in the center with a tetrix motor on each side facing out along the axis with approx 1 stage of reduction in the tetrix transmission. Each motor has a coupling engaged to the hostbot. There are discs on either side of this assembly larger than the OD of the wheel making a spool shape. There are mechanical teeth spaced in a pattern around the OD of the wheel. During deployment this flywheel assembly spins up sitting just above a pipe shaped track with mating mechanical teeth along the length leading to a contoured ramp that blends into the vertical pole. The hostbot releases the coupling features of the motors, the wheel drops onto the track, teeth engage and off she goes up the ramp and pole. Bang it hits the target in .3 seconds and then ricochets off the target, flies over the referees head, lands 20' from the field, climbs the bleachers and lands in someones popcorn.

Is this legal? Don't try this at home kids....

[Teched3]

the first thing that comes to mind in Team Update 1, Rule G19, blue box, refers specifically to flywheels on the MiniBot. read it and decide for yourself.

[Swampdude]

To me, that rule says don't store energy prior to deployment with a flywheel. They also say you can run your motors prior to deployment. In this case the whole minibot is acting as a flywheel. So I'm not sure if you could spin it up prior, but even if you couldn't, you could still spin it up during deployment.

[MattC9]

It would be cutting it close to the 'stored energy' rule, but I think i would be the coolest mini bot out there. no doubt about it.

[Teched3]

I would tend to agree that you could fire up a flywheel at the start of deployment, and then release the device to go up the pole. I question the time it would take to spin it up to speed to develop enough kinetic energy to get up the pole that quickly, but I am assuming you have done the math on the concept. If it comes off the pole at all, I would consider it dangerous to humans as well as robots and you would be not allowed to compete with it for a potential risk factor. It must be 100% safe! Have you prototyped as yet? I would love to see it work! The worst that could happen is that it would not pass inspection, so be ready to punt. By the way, the curved track deployment is being used by Team 190, WPI. Great idea to get off the line without spiking the amps - right out of the Superman ride.

[Swampdude]

No I haven't done the math or prototyped it. I'm just thinking out loud, but it seems feasible. Especially if you could power it before deployment. I have an idea that could attach it to the pole but seems very iffy at this velocity. The big problem is you would need 20 of these every competition, because it's not going to end well. I threw it out here because even though it technically meets the rules, it's too dangerous and wouldn't pass the safety test - so it's interesting. Plus it would likely break the target. There may be a toned down safer concept of this in some way, but I'm not seeing it yet. I got this idea from looking at 233's ramp.