What's the coolest (or most complicated) linkage ever used in FRC?

[Stephi Rae]

Originally Posted by philso

Stephanie

That is really cool! How did your team design/develop this linkage? Did they model it in CAD and articulate it on screen or did they prototype it to get the lengths and pivot points right?

Thanks.

Phil

As the picture in Nuttyman54's post shows, we designed the linkage in Solidworks before fabrication. There are plenty of calculations for linkages like this, and it is a very popular thing to learn/do at WPI. One of the professors has written a few books on machine design and is an expert on these types of linkages (among other things, of course). If you search "design of machinery" in google, his book and his website are the first few hits. This linkage was relatively simple in that context, though complicated for a FIRST robot.

The idea that Nuttyman54 referred to with the linkage was that we basically wanted to mount the ramp as low as possible in the robot, but have the center of rotation above the bumpers and land the top of the ramp at the highest legal point on the pole. Having a linkage like this allowed us to accomplish all of those goals as well as keep the minibot secure and protected during the match, prior to deployment. The mechanism was quite robust considering its complexity, only having a couple of minibot failures all season.