Designing a climbing mechanism for 2013... a humbling experience

[Whippet]

So, would anyone care to explain what kind of gearboxes were used in 2010 for the "Grab and twist" method?

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Whippet

So, would anyone care to explain what kind of gearboxes were used in 2010 for the "Grab and twist" method?

Here's 33's whitepaper on their design. 383 also uploaded videos of their ridiculous unsafe testing procedure to Youtube; they should still be around. Searching for 148's robot Armadillo should also get you some video of their hanger at work; their CAD should also be in CD-Media.

Keep in mind you should only be using these for reference. The 54" rule complicates these designs a lot this year, and the reduction/motor(s) you'll need will be entirely dependent on your climbing design.

[rinim324]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I don't see thirty point hangers being added on mid season. To design them, you basically have to integrate it into every aspect of your robot design. It's one of the most challenging design problems in years.

I think it's more likely that you see teams show up to events as pure hangers and then add on frisbee mechanisms over time rather than the other way around. Though I do expect to see a lot of copied 10 point gravity hangers.

Our team realized this right away, we designed a robot that does a 30 point climb and then dumps frisbees into the top goal and every aspect of our robot is dependent on our climbing mechanism. If a team wanted to rig a 30 point climber midseason they would basically need to build a new robot.

[brassardd]

Question for you regarding the robot in 3 days. It's climbing is legal or not ? It seemsthat because in touch the floor (level 0) and grog the first horizontal bar (level 1 and 2) it would not be a legal climbing.

Can someone answers ?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by brassardd

Question for you regarding the robot in 3 days. It's climbing is legal or not ? It seemsthat because in touch the floor (level 0) and grog the first horizontal bar (level 1 and 2) it would not be a legal climbing.

Can someone answers ?

The rule for touching more than two levels only applies to physical contact with the structure (floor/carpet and the steel tubing that comprises the pyramid), not with occupying the airspace. As such, the robot is touching the ground and the first horizontal bar, which is in level 1. No other parts of the pyramid are contacted, making it a legal 10 point climb.

[JesseK]

We gave up on the design of a 30-point hanger yesterday. We have had plenty of 'visions' for how to do it, yet they all interfere with our desire for disc scoring. So we're scrapping it and instead will focus on disc launching, chute loading, and floor loading with a 10-point hang at the end.

We also plan to drive under the opponents' pyramids to steal their 2 discs in teleop, if all of their robots are too tall. [maniacal laugh]

[F22Rapture]

Originally Posted by JesseK

We also plan to drive under the opponents' pyramids to steal their 2 discs in teleop, if all of their robots are too tall. [maniacal laugh]

Just don't let them touch you on your way out of the pyramid...

[TroyCDH]

Greetings,

After reading about this "Stinger" idea that extended BELOW the robot frame and wheels years past, I have a question.

Is it legal to have a climbing mast and winch, were the mast would end up extending below the robot as well? Keeping in mind an overall height of 84 inches and the cylinder diameter of 54.

I read the rules and see I nothing against it.

Thanks, and good luck to all.

Troy

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by TroyCDH

Greetings,

After reading about this "Stinger" idea that extended BELOW the robot frame and wheels years past, I have a question.

Is it legal to have a climbing mast and winch, were the mast would end up extending below the robot as well? Keeping in mind an overall height of 84 inches and the cylinder diameter of 54.

I read the rules and see I nothing against it.

Thanks, and good luck to all.

Troy

Except possibly the BUMPER ZONE rules... Once the mast goes below the robot, that is now the "bottom" of the robot... R25

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

Except possibly the BUMPER ZONE rules... Once the mast goes below the robot, that is now the "bottom" of the robot... R25

I don't believe the mast underneath would count as "standing normally", but this might warrant a Q&A question.

[eedoga]

I feel everyone's pain. Our team uses community voting to choose which design we are going to build, and the community overwhelmingly selected the robot that climbs the pyramid...We have run into one nightmare after another each which required an almost complete redesign. Our current solution will hopefully work, but it counts on a number of subsystems working relatively perfectly so that the whole thing doesn't just bind up.

The new perimeter constraints coupled with the high level of complexity in our design men we are pushing the limits on what our team is capable of on a number of different levels.

Here is to having it all come together.

Edoga

[mikegrundvig]

I believe we have a design that can climb the pyramid reliably 100% of the time (baring mechanical breakdown). It's relatively simple but fabricating it to be reliable is certainly quite hard. Right now turning the mechanical design into something we can fabricate is the big concern. One thing that's proven essential to getting the design working is that we have to build the robot around it. This isn't a component that can simply bolt onto a basic chassis like we typically do.

-Mike

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by danopia

For those of you that have ideas for a 30-point climb, would your robot be able to scale to a pyramid of, say, 10 levels without nontrivial changes? Ignore your robot hanging 30 feet in the air.

It seems like some postings I've seen would because it's repetitive, and others have like a full dance routine going on that lands perfectly on top and wouldn't work for any other pyramid.

On Friday, we had a design that could do 3 levels and would need changes to do more. I leave for the weekend, and now the team tells me we have a design that could do 100 levels if we wanted, without any changes

[Madison]

I wonder how many of the 'simple' ideas people profess to have were things we considered and dismissed as being too unreliable, too unpredictable or not simple at all.

We have shied away from anything that relies on the machine's center of mass being in a known, good location or from manipulating that center of mass to encourage the robot to swing into some other orientation. There are too many unknowns there for me to be comfortable putting considerable effort into such a system.

We have some ideas for climbing up the corner that do not require manipulating our CoM, but they have their own challenges. We are likely going to focus instead on frisbee manipulation -- the potential for incremental improvement in that aspect of the game seems more promising to us than the potential, fixed 30/50 pt. contribution.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Madison

I wonder how many of the 'simple' ideas people profess to have were things we considered and dismissed as being too unreliable, too unpredictable or not simple at all.

Anyone who thinks a 30 point hang is simple has no idea what they're talking about, IMO.

There are so many dependencies that affect every aspect of your robot. This is the hardest task we've ever been asked to do and I will bet money there are no more than 30 teams in all of FIRST that do it in an official match.