Idea to pull down Ramp???

[Roger_Bryan]

Our team came up with an idea to pull down the ramp, attach a piece of wood to the frame of the robot,cut just enough to catch the ramp and slide it down the robot; so that the robot can get onto the ramp.

Do, you have any comments, ideas, or suggestions?
Post Comment(s) Below.

[EricH]

I'd say to refer to your prior thread on this topic, but it seems to have been deleted.

So, assuming that you're still after a non-articulated method to drop the bridge, you can't do that, and here's why:

First, you have to take the bumpers into consideration. 3" of pool noodles, fabric, and plywood. The bridge will be starting at 12" off the floor; the bumpers will be somewhere between 2" and 10" due to the bumper rules. You'll have to drop the bridge at least 7" to get to the point where an angle will work, through the bumper zone, without getting caught on the bumpers.

Now, we go to the rules. Per [R02-E], nothing can go beyond the vertical projection of the Frame Perimeter defined in [R01-2] other than an appendage permitted by [R02-D]. The bumpers attach to the outside of the Frame Perimeter per [R33] and [R28-E]. So, a simple angled block of wood must be inside the Frame Perimeter. This makes it useless, because now there are 3" of bumpers between it and the bridge.

Therefore, the angled block of wood must be articulated. It is possible that it could be locked into position once extended as an appendage; how is a design exercise left to the reader (it depends on extension method). To drop the bridge between 7" and 10" to get under the bumpers, you will have 11" of appendage left; an angled block of wood should be sufficient. Once the bridge is under the bumpers, it should be relatively simple to use the frame of the robot as an angle.

[Roger_Bryan]

So, do you have any ideas or suggestions; that we could find useful and take into consideration? It would be greatly appreciated.

-& yes, my other post was deleted, im not sure why, but when i logged on today, it said i was banned and i had to create a new account.

[JohnSchneider]

Probably has something to do with trolling that girls picture...

He did respond to your design question. He told you that due to bumper rules that piece cant be stationary and has to be articulated. The concept would work but you have to find a sufficient way of actuating the triangle.

There are plenty of other examples of people doing it both on here and youtube. But were not going to design your robot for you Just search around and you'll find something you can use.

[jvriezen]

Originally Posted by Roger_Bryan

Our team came up with an idea to pull down the ramp, attach a piece of wood to the frame of the robot,cut just enough to catch the ramp and slide it down the robot; so that the robot can get onto the ramp.

Do, you have any comments, ideas, or suggestions?
Post Comment(s) Below.

Its a good starting idea, but I do have a couple of comments. Its not clear from the drawing that the geometry will push the bridge down hard enough/far enough to be effective. (I realize its just a simple drawing and you'd adjust for this, of course)

Secondly, since you didn't mention anything about it, I just want to be sure you can't just slap on a piece as your drawing shows. You must start the match with all parts of your robot (except the bumpers) inside the frame perimeter. Hence just about any bridge tipper mechanism will be an 'appendage' and will need to be 'deployed' sometime after the start of the match.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Roger_Bryan

So, do you have any ideas or suggestions; that we could find useful and take into consideration? It would be greatly appreciated.

There are a few ways to tip the bridge. The closest to a fixed wedge would be to have a linear slide and springs or pneumatics send a wedge out to the appendage limit, then lock into place--you just need a release so it doesn't fire before the match. You could also build something a little more complex to come in from the top using one of the higher-torque motor/gearbox combinations, say a window motor. There are a number of other ways to do this, I'm sure--we'll probably see something that nobody thought of except the team that kept it a closely-guarded secret until their competition.

-& yes, my other post was deleted, im not sure why, but when i logged on today, it said i was banned and i had to create a new account.

I would suggest asking your team members, or people with access to your computer, if anyone was on your CD account yesterday (or was it the day before?). To put it nicely, they were acting immaturely, whoever it was, though not in that particular thread (it was in one of the image threads from CD-Media). If it was team members, you aren't the first to have something like that happen, though it's worse than the other case I can remember offhand.

[Hawiian Cadder]

We are using an arm with a small grapple that catches on the edge of the bridge, the pivot of the arm is higher than the resting height of the bridge so as the robot drives forward the ramp is forced down. We chose this because it seemed a little more gentle than the extendable ramp method, while still utilizing the power of the drive-train.

[Roger_Bryan]

The Main thing is, before anyone goes off on a tangent, We are mainly looking for something "plain and simple". not really like pneumatics, but just simple enough to know it down.