CG of Bins

[Jim Meyer]

Originally posted by Gui Cavalcanti
Does anyone else know of a better method? Namely for 130 pound robots.

My favorite is as I described for the crates. Balancing your robot on three sides. Put some masking tape on the robot vertically above each balance point. Each of these represent a plane in which the CG lies. The intersection of these 3 planes is a single point.

You can also do this by sliding pipes under your robot, starting from the edges and moving them to the center. The pipe with the least force always moves the easiest and you always end with the pipes under the CG of the robot.

A method used for cars is to suspend your robot and swing it like a pendulum. The period of the pendulum can be used to calculate the CG.

Another method used for cars is to put scales under all four wheels and then elevate the front and measure the weight transfer to the rear, and vice versa.