pic: Versa Robot

[smistthegreat]

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[Whippet]

This is a really cool robot given three days with the CAD files for the parts! How did you intend to balance the arm?

[yash101]

Now I see how awesome the Vex Versa* stuff can be! Wildcard means anything with the name beginning with Versa

[DampRobot]

Why did you choose to go double jointed, especially where both are powered by motors? A single jointed arm would be just as effective, and a double jointed arm would likely be prohibitively hard to control.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Why did you choose to go double jointed, especially where both are powered by motors? A single jointed arm would be just as effective, and a double jointed arm would likely be prohibitively hard to control.

Since this won't be built, I'm not terribly concerned with controlling it. The main decision to make another joint was just for the sake of added mechanical complexity. Would I build this over something simpler for a game like Logomotion? Probably not. Was it a good CAD exercise for me and did it show the versatility (ha) of the VexPro products? Yeah, I'd say so.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Why did you choose to go double jointed, especially where both are powered by motors? A single jointed arm would be just as effective, and a double jointed arm would likely be prohibitively hard to control.

Tell that to 2056, 217, 11, 973, 1730, or any other number of successful teams in 2011 alone who did just that.

Also consider that this is a generic arm for no particular game. There's no guarantee that the best angle to score a game piece at will line up perfectly with the angle a single joint arm provides. I love single jointed arms but you can't say single jointed arms are always "just as effective" regardless of the game.

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by Whippet

This is a really cool robot given three days with the CAD files for the parts! How did you intend to balance the arm?

Again, since this won't get built, I wasn't as concerned about how it would perform as I was with how easy it is to use the VexPro products. That being said, it should be fairly easy to either throw a couple of gas shocks going from the arm to the supports, or just extend then main arm back farther and have some surgical tubing pulling down on the other side of the shoulder joint.

[Scoyle]

Can you give an estimated price or supply list. This is something that I have been the most curious about because it is hard to image a price point of a robot without superstructures and a relatively new set of parts.

[yash101]

Is this for logomotion? That seems like a possibility!

[smistthegreat]

Originally Posted by smistthegreat

It's not really designed with a specific year in mind

No, it wasn't designed for Logomotion, but it was certainly inspired by lifting games like it. Again, this was meant to examine how easy it would be to build a reasonably complicated robot with only COTS parts from VexPro.

[IndySam]

fun exercise (eh procrastination) well done.