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

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Chris...thanks for linking to the picture of our re-designed linkage. I didn't get a chance to really look for a good picture of it.

As far as linkage design....it's all 2D AutoCAD and circles for me. Basically, just have to pick a starting pivot point and sketch away. For 2008 it was a three position design. So it was basically iteration (trial and error) to find pivot points and link lengths that fit the three positions we were trying to achieve.

I am sure there are more ingenious ways of figuring it out, but that's how I do it.

I like to do the reverse process in SW. Draw the same linkage 3-4 times (depending on number of desired positions) without dimensioning any lengths, just dimension where we want to end up and what angle we want there. This then "solves" for the correct link lengths. It's also nice to leave it partially constrained and move it by hand around so you can see the tradeoffs of various mounting points.