Why didn't we think of that?

[Boe]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

braking system for 2012 so that double balancing a robot turns into a single balance. Also for Co-op bridge, there is a guaranteed 1 point for both robots being supported by the bridge after play stops. Check out 3173's robot who used this very successfully at the championships and I believe that 108 also used it.

We also had brakes but we didn't make it to championships

http://robotics.mnmsa.org/media/photos/
picture 78 on the left side shows it best

[MattC9]

Mad town's (1323's) shooter and intake on the 4 bar linkage. Need I say more?

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by MattC9

Mad town's (1323's) shooter and intake on the 4 bar linkage. Need I say more?

I'm not familiar with it; and I can't seem to find some pics of it on their website. Perhaps a link?

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by MattC9

Mad town's (1323's) shooter and intake on the 4 bar linkage. Need I say more?

I would disagree. Having seen this robot at competition, I would say that the four bar linkage added a high COG and a lot of mechanical complexity for a very marginal performance benefit. Not a "why didn't we think of that?" in my mind.

[MIT_MAN]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Can you explain how this works? Were you looking through the driver station feed or at the backboard itself? (the latter seems difficult to me with the nature of the retro-reflective tape)

You can get a good view of how the light alignment works by checking this picture out -------> http://gallery.raiderrobotix.org/201...mpDSP/IMG_3477

You can see the light projecting a bright beam onto the lowest backboard. We know that if we are lined up with the lowest basket, since the top basket is in line with the lowest basket, we are in line with the top basket.

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by CalTran

I'm not familiar with it; and I can't seem to find some pics of it on their website. Perhaps a link?

Here is a good picture of it

[tickspe15]

Team 1318 has a dual intake with the left intake flipping out to tip the bridge and assist in pulling up robot on to bridge

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I would disagree. Having seen this robot at competition, I would say that the four bar linkage added a high COG and a lot of mechanical complexity for a very marginal performance benefit. Not a "why didn't we think of that?" in my mind.

While you can't really say the performance benefit was marginal or not since they, to the best of my knowledge, didn't play without raising their shooter assembly - I think the numbers speak for themselves:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...51&postcount=1

and

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...86&postcount=6

Would you also claim that 330 or 548's lifted shooters had marginal advantages? Trust me, these teams did plenty of CoG calculations. Plus, while at the key or fender it doesn't even matter, it's not like you drive around with the bot in scoring position.

[Gary.C]

Originally Posted by MattC9

Mad town's (1323's) shooter and intake on the 4 bar linkage. Need I say more?

Thanks! We had hella fun designing and building the guy. At first we felt like we did something horribly stupid and joked around with our friends on 330 at CVR this year!

Originally Posted by CalTran

I'm not familiar with it; and I can't seem to find some pics of it on their website. Perhaps a link?

Thanks Sisk for posting the pic, vids of it are here:

youtube.com/frc1323

Originally Posted by DampRobot

I would disagree. Having seen this robot at competition, I would say that the four bar linkage added a high COG and a lot of mechanical complexity for a very marginal performance benefit. Not a "why didn't we think of that?" in my mind.

Thats quite incorrect.

As the 4 bar linkage is very very simple to do... It all depends when you saw us as well. At Davis we had major code problems and had a very rough start, as we had a new programmer that didn't fully grasp what we were doing. We've never been amazing at code, and this year we built the 4 bar so if for some reason we didn't have the code we desired. We could pick up balls, lift and score a very high percentage shot (ball variation killed a lot of key shots).

According to the scouting data that was linked in Akash's post, it shows that we were the highest point conversion robot in our division (~89-90%). Shot a ton of balls and missed very little. Unless stats lie

Everyone for some reason feels that we have a very very very absurdly high CG... At Davis when we had code issues, our arm was stuck midway and we traversed the bump without flipping. We've scored points and the other robot has tipped trying to push us. We did a lot of math and knew what situations we'd be in. We've had a team or two come up to us at champs before a match and tell us we have a way high CG, but then they tip going over the bridge. Its not like we drove around with our arm up like crazy people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oww7Y...ure=plpp_video

And it wasn't honestly a ton of mechanical complexity. It added about 4lbs of extra weight and the system was pretty darn light/simple. Many people came by and checked out our setup. Most were quite surprised how simple/light the pieces were.

If we had to do it again, we would still do our 4 bar lift guy. As it allowed us to score accurately, added very little weight and made us pretty versatile. Many people thought we couldn't key shoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MswBGkfH18&feature=plcp

But we could probably key shoot as fast as we could fender.

-Gary

[n1ckd2012]

118s Co-op assist. They would tip the bridge the opposite direction to allow robots to get on. Then they hold it steady while the two other robots balance.

Looking for a video...

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Ross3098

+ 1 - Team 67's hanging mechanism in 2010. I mean come on, scoring a hang AFTER the buzzer??

Speaking of which, anyone have an links to information or documentation behind how they made this work?

Originally Posted by n1ckd2012

118s Co-op assist. They would tip the bridge the opposite direction to allow robots to get on. Then they hold it steady while the two other robots balance.

Looking for a video...

I think the balance assist as a whole was a pretty 'get it or not' kind of design. Teams that had balance assist, whether it was via stingers or utility arms, could balance much, much easier than those without and it showed in their COOP scores, overall rankings, and eliminations performance.

Here's a link to 118 helping out on the balance.

- Sunny G.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by n1ckd2012

118s Co-op assist. They would tip the bridge the opposite direction to allow robots to get on. Then they hold it steady while the two other robots balance.

Looking for a video...

You'd be amazed how hard it is to get teams to understand how useful this is. We have a similar system and we had a hard time conniving teams to let us use it. I don't think we had more than two teams agree at championship. Maybe if we had a lower number, or a cool lighting system

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by IKE

2011, the doubler roller claw with hinged jaw was popular on many top teams (111, 1114, 254, 33, 177?) and not present on lower performers (yes there were many good roller claws, and many good hinged claws, but only a handful of double roller hinged claws).

Yes we did have a hinged double roller claw in 2011.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by Gary.C

Thanks! We had hella fun designing and building the guy. At first we felt like we did something horribly stupid and joked around with our friends on 330 at CVR this year!



Thanks Sisk for posting the pic, vids of it are here:

youtube.com/frc1323



Thats quite incorrect.

As the 4 bar linkage is very very simple to do... It all depends when you saw us as well. At Davis we had major code problems and had a very rough start, as we had a new programmer that didn't fully grasp what we were doing. We've never been amazing at code, and this year we built the 4 bar so if for some reason we didn't have the code we desired. We could pick up balls, lift and score a very high percentage shot (ball variation killed a lot of key shots).

According to the scouting data that was linked in Akash's post, it shows that we were the highest point conversion robot in our division (~89-90%). Shot a ton of balls and missed very little. Unless stats lie

Everyone for some reason feels that we have a very very very absurdly high CG... At Davis when we had code issues, our arm was stuck midway and we traversed the bump without flipping. We've scored points and the other robot has tipped trying to push us. We did a lot of math and knew what situations we'd be in. We've had a team or two come up to us at champs before a match and tell us we have a way high CG, but then they tip going over the bridge. Its not like we drove around with our arm up like crazy people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oww7Y...ure=plpp_video

And it wasn't honestly a ton of mechanical complexity. It added about 4lbs of extra weight and the system was pretty darn light/simple. Many people came by and checked out our setup. Most were quite surprised how simple/light the pieces were.

If we had to do it again, we would still do our 4 bar lift guy. As it allowed us to score accurately, added very little weight and made us pretty versatile. Many people thought we couldn't key shoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MswBGkfH18&feature=plcp

But we could probably key shoot as fast as we could fender.

-Gary

When I first saw you guys at CVR(through your webcast too by the way), I was really amazed. You guys were keeping up with 254. The most impressive part of the performance, was that once there was defense on you, you just backed up to the key, and had top tier accuracy.

[HumblePie]

Originally Posted by Boe

We also had brakes but we didn't make it to championships

http://robotics.mnmsa.org/media/photos/
picture 78 on the left side shows it best

+1 on the braking system as we added one between competitions. Very helpful in balancing as it helped us to a #3 seed at Palmetto. Our first competition in Orlando was a different story....... We also used a slanted elevator, and a turreted shooter. For the transition from elevator to turret..... a stainless steel mixing bowl It slowed the shooter down a bit, but the consistency was pretty good as the ball was always presented to the centerline of the shooter. I heard from another team attending CMP that another team there used a bowl as well. Can anyone confirm?