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

[mikegrundvig]

Our design uses linear rods and bearings to guide the cylinders and fix the gripping "claws" into the right position and angle. At the last stage of our climb, the rods were hitting the box on the pyramid and preventing it from climbing to it's extent. So it was less a matter of rules and more a matter of physical interference driving our decision.

We were able to fix it last night but the CAD design has had to be extremely accurate in every detail and it's taking forever. The teacher over the team was worried enough about the progress that he has some of the team building a second robot that doesn't use this design and is just a "run and gun" bot with 10 pt climb which we got working and tested yesterday as well.

-Mike