Never Do This, and Other Good Ideas Gone Bad

[JesseK]

80/20 (and maybe Bosch too) sliders really start to bind on multi-stage compound elevators. You also have to keep the 80/20 perfectly square to minimize binding, and at height there's a higher tendency for torsion. We scrapped 80/20 in favor of powder coating + teflon for slide friction that was close to what a bearing slide would have; the box aluminum also resisted torsion alot better.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by JesseK

80/20 (and maybe Bosch too) sliders really start to bind on multi-stage compound elevators. You also have to keep the 80/20 perfectly square to minimize binding, and at height there's a higher tendency for torsion. We scrapped 80/20 in favor of powder coating + teflon for slide friction that was close to what a bearing slide would have; the box aluminum also resisted torsion alot better.

We have not had even a single issue with Bosch slider carriages binding on multi-stage compound lifters -- and from trackballs to minibots to entire robots, we've really put them through their paces! I can't speak for 8020.

[Kyler386]

I don't know if the majority of my team would agree with me on this, but here's what I think:

2006: No more turret designs. According to members & alumni, 06 was an all around horrible year, robot and all.

We broke this rule in my first year. (2009) Needless to say, our robot scored once that whole year.

2010: Do not try to stop a pnumatic cylinder halfway. We had a "Bump Mode" that allowed our robot to go over the bumps. To do this, we had to activate our pnumatic kicker, and then immediately bring it back about halfway so that the kicker would clear the surface of the bumps without the kicker breaking the plane of the bumpers. Sounded good in theory, (which, according to a forum regular, is a nice place) but it did not work in the real world.

And the new one for Logomotion: NO MORE BUMPER SKIRTS!!! Those things are horrid.

[Jared Russell]

Turreted shooters were on Einstein in both 2006 and 2009. Well designed and built turrets work just fine.

[Kyler386]

In that case, I guess we suck at turrets, along with keeping our robot underweight...

[Molten]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Turreted shooters were on Einstein in both 2006 and 2009. Well designed and built turrets work just fine.

Though they have been known to work fine, I can't recall any robots that did better then their non-turreted counter-parts. Perhaps there are exceptions to the rule, but I certainly think its a good "never do this" example. Often times, the turret slows down the shooting process because it takes too long to aim.

Jason

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by Molten

Though they have been known to work fine, I can't recall any robots that did better then their non-turreted counter-parts. Perhaps there are exceptions to the rule, but I certainly think its a good "never do this" example. Often times, the turret slows down the shooting process because it takes too long to aim.

Tell that to 217. Their 2006 and 2009 robots disagree.

In 2009, turrets could have been unnecessary (depending on design specifics), but not all years are like 2009. In 2006, they were much more useful when you were making long-range shots and the camera worked.

[Kyler386]

Originally Posted by Molten

Though they have been known to work fine, I can't recall any robots that did better then their non-turreted counter-parts. Perhaps there are exceptions to the rule, but I certainly think its a good "never do this" example. Often times, the turret slows down the shooting process because it takes too long to aim.

Jason

I wouldn't exactly rule it as a "never do this." There were many successful turret designs I'm sure, my comment was focused on our team, rather than all the other teams.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by apalrd

Tell that to 217. Their 2006 and 2009 robots disagree.

In 2009, turrets could have been unnecessary (depending on design specifics), but not all years are like 2009. In 2006, they were much more useful when you were making long-range shots and the camera worked.

25 in 2006 as well. Their turret was pretty darn effective.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by thefro526

25 in 2006 as well. Their turret was pretty darn effective.

27 in 2003... 2004, 2005, and 2006. There are pretty detailed pictures of 2005 and 2006 on here.

Originally Posted by Kyler386

And the new one for Logomotion: NO MORE BUMPER SKIRTS!!! Those things are horrid.

Why not?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Kyler386

I wouldn't exactly rule it as a "never do this." There were many successful turret designs I'm sure, my comment was focused on our team, rather than all the other teams.

All of the counter examples are teams with lots of engineering support. Making things spin is not as easy as it might seem, and I think most of the "never do this" in this thread really mean "Don't do this unless you have the engineering support to do it right." For example, scissor-lifts are pretty common in the real-world, but the vast majority of FRC scissor-lifts don't really work that well. I can't think of a single design I've never seem implemented well by someone, but for some of the more complicated ones I've seen a heck of a lot more poor implementations than good ones.

[Molten]

Originally Posted by apalrd

Tell that to 217. Their 2006 and 2009 robots disagree.

In 2009, turrets could have been unnecessary (depending on design specifics), but not all years are like 2009. In 2006, they were much more useful when you were making long-range shots and the camera worked.

Perhaps I forgot to type the word "exceptions" in my post. I could have sworn I did.

As far as 2006 though, turrets did serve a purpose. I will give you full credit on that count. I suppose some games do cater to turrets better then others.

Jason

[ChocolateDragon]

Originally Posted by Dkt01

Our team will not likely use vacuums, or conveyor belts due to flawed execution and/or excess time we spent fixing parts. We will also never make a robot with less than an inch of ground clearance again (got stuck on the field repeatedly last year).
I agree that almost anything can be successful if done correctly, some ideas are just more difficult to implement than others.

What about the conveyor belt you tried didn't work? Was it the flawed execution, or the excess fixing time, or some other reason?