Taking totes from ground

[Charger]

Originally Posted by TrevorNoon

It was incredibly hard for us to find a way to pick them up from underneath without them flipping over. In addition to that, it seemed to need a strong support behind of it. From what I can see, most teams will be picking up from the sides.

but the totes in landfill zone, they are not in same position, some of them have their long side parallel to guardrails and some, perpendicular. I think it's very hard to take both of these totes from sides with stable parts attachted to telescope system or elevator, etc.

[DonRotolo]

If we think about it, we can pick up totes from the bottom, sides, front/back or top.

Which is best depends on your team's decisions on robot capabilities. What do you want the robot to be able to do?

To me, top and bottom are harder than sides. But one needs to consider the case of picking up the middle tote from a group of 3: Is there enough room to get in there to pick it up? Or, can you develop some other way to 'free' the tote so it can be picked up from the sides (or front/back)?

Thinking out loud, maybe all we need is a small 'hook' that pulls the tote out from the group to expose the sides (or front/back) enough to be picked up.

[Canon reeves]

I haven't seen anybody else talk about this, and I have yet to build a prototype. My idea was to utilize a passive system to grab the totes, and to do this, grab from the handles on the shorter sides. In short imagine putting a piece of wood up into the handle, this piece also runs along to almost the bottom for support. Basically it relies on the bottom brace to keep it upright while the lip holds the inside of the lid. Here is a link to some quick sketches I drew. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f... 571615&type=1