Anyone else do an unplanned dismount?

[Francis-134]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

190 had a unplanned dismount during a qualification match. They used steel cable in their arm, and when they started up on the 30 point bar one match, the cable split and the hook went flying and the rest of the robot dropped straight down and went thud.

Yeah, we like to put on a show .

The steel cable snapped while we were hanging from the third rung. This caused the arm (we call it the OSHA, Omni-Sloth Hook Arm) to unwind down until the arm reached its lower limit. The bracket that holds the hook onto the top of the OSHA is designed to be frangible in just such a case to avoid placing undue load onto any of the more sensitive parts of the climber. When it snapped, it shot the hook up into the air and caused us to fall down straight onto our wheels a good five feet or so.

After a checkup and quick fix in the pit, everything was back to normal within an hour.

[tsaksa]

Originally Posted by Francis-134

Yeah, we like to put on a show .

The steel cable snapped while we were hanging from the third rung. This caused the arm (we call it the OSHA, Omni-Sloth Hook Arm) to unwind down until the arm reached its lower limit. The bracket that holds the hook onto the top of the OSHA is designed to be frangible in just such a case to avoid placing undue load onto any of the more sensitive parts of the climber. When it snapped, it shot the hook up into the air and caused us to fall down straight onto our wheels a good five feet or so.

After a checkup and quick fix in the pit, everything was back to normal within an hour.

Wow, that was quite a drop. It is good to hear that it was not a catastrophic fall. Early in the season some posts were suggesting that many teams would have their day cut short by a fall from the pyramid, but I have not really seen that. However the prospect of such an event caused us to put a sturdy 2 inch foam pad on the bottom of our robot just in case. I suspect if it did fall in an actual competition it would not have been a serious problem. But I am also very happy we did not need to find out.