Orienting Boxes

[COOPERcable]

This is a very important issue, and I was wondering if any teams had dealt with it. My team (1084) has a simple "poker" that tips the box to the proper orientaton for our stacker. Has anyone else thought up some genius way to manipulate the boxes?

[Solace]

Originally posted by COOPERcable
This is a very important issue, and I was wondering if any teams had dealt with it. My team (1084) has a simple "poker" that tips the box to the proper orientaton for our stacker. Has anyone else thought up some genius way to manipulate the boxes?

both teams 571 and 281 have arms that squeeze the boxes into proper alignment for their pickup mechanisms

281
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=18395

571
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=18334

[COOPERcable]

I meant "has anyone created a component that can flip the boxes over so they are top up?"

[Keith Chester]

1089.

[Yan Wang]

639

Basically, if you're a stacker, there's no chance that you'll be successful if you cannot orient bins. Watching the UTC scrimmage matches (ouch, that flip hurt), maybe 4-5 bins were right side up. The majority were upside down or on its side.

[COOPERcable]

Right... well does anyone have pics or a description of how they did this?

[Yan Wang]

Well, yes, we do of course. But no, we will not be posting them anytime before our first regional.

[Wayne C.]

re 1089's Quicksilver machine

1089 has no hand to pick up boxes. They hook them under the lip of the box or the handles. Look at the gallery pix to see what I mean

The mechanism is so simple it is obvious but it requires that the boxes be flipped upright.

SOooo- if you look at their mechanism the hooks are on top of a pneumatic arm. As the arm swings up the face of the mechanism is held vertical .

However that means the boxes, with their overhanging lids and shape, hook on at a tilted angle.

To rectify that underneath the arm is an extension covered with rubber foam. As the arm swings up the extension swings out progressively more and the boxes are kept vertical.

To upright boxes the raised arm is lowered on top of the misoriented box. The rubber extension surface adheres to the plastic with a slight friction and with a short pull back by the robot the box flips up. The way it is all oriented the box is about 3 inches in front of and perfectly lined up with the hooking mechanism and that means an easy connection there.

They also have a finger to flip boxes and guide the driver into optimal hooking position. The can flip boxes efficiently from any position. The can hook from all 4 sides of the bins.

This thing works VERY well and I have watched them stack up to six boxes that way. They do 3-4 easily. The higher stacks are a bit unstable when lowered. They ALWAYs are able to flip the box on the first or second try.

BTW- the idea came at a time when they were about 10 lbs overweight and looking to build a grasping arm. One of the students was playing with the incomplete base and accidentally hooked the box on the plastic connector of the incomplete hand. The rest was crazy brainstorming, pizza in hand and snow coming down. It saved a good 6 lbs.


BTW2- Team 25's robot can also upright boxes with our wings but in no way as efficiently.

Too bad 1089 will only be going to Rutgers because this device is a really neat thing to see in action.

WC
team 25

[soezgg]

$$$ Orienting is EZ $$$


We will post pics soon.

[activemx]

we have two pokerts in front at different levels. Works very well!

[Yan Wang]

1:45 is such a short time... I expect the most anyone will orient efficiently is around 3 bins and stack is about 5-6 (not including taking a human stack). Of course, if you have two teams allied together who are both stackers, the orientor team will be very good at allowing the other team to stack. The UTC scrimmage videos showed very very few bins landing right side up so the human stacks will be a big part of the game. Stealing stacks is also important

[Pierson]

Team 360 has a box orienter that rotates with a window motor, opens and closes with pneumatics and can also stack 2 boxes high.

[FAKrogoth]

You too, eh?

Unfortunately, due to weight requirements, we will not be able to both rotate and stack at the same time (unless some cool form of magic happens).

I thought aluminum was supposed to be light . . .

[etoleb]

Although we can use our arms to flip bins to the "proper" orientation fairly quickly, we usually stack the bins when they're upside-down or sideways. Its just faster this way, at least for us.

As for our method, well, we usually just "tip" boxes over that are sideways.

Greg

[Spikey]

Our robot can grab a box in any orientation. The grabber is wide enough to accomadate any position.
Check Team 293's Spike in the pic forums!