Who Has a Bridge-Balancing Mechanism?

[Clinton Bolinger]

2337 - Has a peg leg that was inspired by 148 and 33.

We successfully used it at Northville for the Coop Bridge as well as a Triple Balance.

Video of the Triple Balance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p0aiLfUM1k
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielernst/7018508605/

Picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielernst/7017927741/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielernst/6871821718/

Tribute:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...5&d=1332792423

-Clinton-

[Boe]

i dont know if this counts but team 2175 has a braking mechanism on our robot that allows us to hold our ground on the bridge. Its just two small cylinders that push into the wheels and lock our whole drive train in place

you can see one of them in picture 78 here (on the leftmost wheel)
http://robotics.mnmsa.org/media/photos/

and you can see them in action here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG9Di730AZk
~58 seconds in

256 has one - It's 27"x37"x40", weighs a little over 90 pounds, and just happens to score basketballs.

In all truth, our whole robot is our balancer; It has a few automatic balancing modes, a brake mode, which resets it to it's previous position in the event it's moved, and a few gyros to help it know it's position.

Surprisingly, robots can be great balancing mechanisms by themselves with a few sensors and some software.

[Bjenks548]

3098 had one for eliminations, they changed their bridge lowering device for a four bar "stinger". 610's deserves more of a shout out as well, their bridge lowering device can point straight down to stop a bridge from swinging too far down.

[TheMadCADer]

Well...148 isn't the only Texas team with a bridge mechanism anymore...

Tune in to Lone Star and you'll see a few. Hard to say how many, but I know of a couple.

And some of them work really well with long robots...

[372 lives on]

at Seattle i saw two teams with double "peg legs" I saw them both work in practice but never during the competition

2046(never had a need for it), 3662(removed for weight?)

both where original designs from what i saw.

[Djur]

3958 had one at the Boston Regional. It's really cool, but from what I could see, it took a while to use it to actually balance with it.

[Samwaldo]

Team 1099, the DiscoTechs, designed their robot so that the shooter, ball picker upper, and the device that holds and brings up balls are all one piece, which allows for everything on the robot to be shifted, meaning we can shift our weight on the bridge easily

[404'd]

After Kansas City Team 967 decided to build a bridge balancing arm. We decided on a design inspired by HOT team. Although we could get a triple balance in about 20 seconds on the practice field at Wisconsin (Thanks to teams 706 and 2506), we were never able to attempt the triple during an actual match.

The arm also helps from tipping during single and double balances, and also from getting balls from hard to reach places.



Here is a practice triple balance in our shop with our practice robot, and 2011 robot.


And a closeup of the arm

[Lil' Lavery]

In the vein of "other" mechanisms, team 1218 has a pneumatic brake that extends from the bottom of their robot to help them stay in place and consume less space on the bridge.

[Will Andrews]

Without wanting to give away too much, 1218 will also be adding a few new features to aid in a 3 robot balance.

[s_forbes]

No stinger yet ( ) but we do have the pneumatic brakes working so we can act as the other end of the robot congo line without falling off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NDBSpexx5w

[tim-tim]

217 has what they refer to as a "Dingus". Although I did not get to see it inoperation during Chesapeake...

[NXTGeek]

Team 3476 has an exemplary one! A wedge locks in place in the back of our robot with two steel levers. That way the driver can just drive onto the ramp, with the bridge lowering consecutively.
-CAD Video- to see the bridge control, go to 56 seconds.

[ZeroGAdam]

Team 2180 has a braking system which is nothing more then a bicycle brake attached to a servo with some fishing wire.... Talk about simplistic bubble gum and paperclips solutions. It works very effectively and has made co-op balancing a breeze for us...
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater