Unique robot design?

[Addison4300]

Originally Posted by Bwalker

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

Pneumatic extenders maybe?

[Bwalker]

Originally Posted by Addison4300

Pneumatic extenders maybe?

We'll post pictures in the coming weeks.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by Bwalker

Team 1448 has a couple tricks up our sleeve, and a pretty ingenious method of changing our robot's dimensions. *cough* *cough*

Rotation about the W-axis?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

Rotation about the W-axis?

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

[Justin Montois]

I think this year you will see more robot variation than in any prior year.

Its going to be crazy.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

There is nothing in the rules about extending in to the W area that the other side of the field occupies . . .

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Then there is the whole crazy (but maybe crazy like a fox) idea of I'm-building-for-Einstein-and-I-don't-care-if-I-rank-dead-last-during-the-qualifiers Strategy (cough, cough, simultaneous 4 can auton grab, cough, cough)*

I could see a robot that was entirely a mechanism to grab containers from the center being very popular at the championship (if they can get there!). If it always won the center step race, or would always have enough force to pull the containers to their side, it would be able to cap the maximum stack score of any alliance significantly lower than I expect competitive alliances to score.

A robot built to do only this is attainable for a decent number of teams, but I don't know how many teams will be crazy enough to try it.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by magnets

I could see a robot that was entirely a mechanism to grab containers from the center being very popular at the championship (if they can get there!). If it always won the center step race, or would always have enough force to pull the containers to their side, it would be able to cap the maximum stack score of any alliance significantly lower than I expect competitive alliances to score.

A robot built to do only this is attainable for a decent number of teams, but I don't know how many teams will be crazy enough to try it.

I don't trust any robot that can "get all four recycling bins in the center before anybody on the other side can get one." There will be very strong robots that can very quickly - during autonomous - get one recycling bin off the step. To think that you can get four before anybody else could get one is foolish.... With that thought, what happens if one of the four bins you are clamped onto during autonomous gets grabbed by a strong robot that can put all it's "pull" into that one recycling bin - and has an advantageous center of gravity? I can visualize the "4-bin grabber" getting yanked right over the step and out of commission for the entire match. And, it would be penalized with a foul....

I'd have to really see such a robot perform consistently before wanting to go into eliminations in St. Louis with it as an alliance member.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by Joseph Smith

You'll find plenty of people eager to share their unique designs in about two weeks. Until then I doubt you'll get much.

I really don't see much reason for secrecy at this point... There will be no defense this year, so nobody can plan strategies to stop you... If you have a brilliant idea and somebody tries to mimic you at this point, they are already so far behind that they are not likely a threat to be better than you - and could probably use some help.

[Chris is me]

I don't want to post our design yet just because I don't want to post something that doesn't work, and we're still ironing out the bugs. But I think we have a fairly unique concept. I wouldn't be surprised to see a half dozen other teams do it, but it should stand out. Whether it stands out because it's an unnecessary gimmick, or because it's a novel solution to scoring in this year's game, remains to be seen. We have no frame cutout and it has nothing to do with the center bins.

[s_forbes]

I was surprised to find out that we ended up at the same design concept as the Bitbuckets (4183) without collaborating on anything. One end of the robot harvests totes off the floor and holds them in a stack, with each tote held by the lip on it's wide side. On the other end is an elevator for dealing with the recycle bin. Ours has a small 4-bar linkage on the end of the elevator to get to the maximum height, not sure if they're doing the same with that detail.

It's neat to compare how the same robot design can be built with different resources.

Our claw design is further along than our stacker design:


Their stacker design is further along than their claw design:



There's going to be lots of different robots this year, should be fun to check them all out! Might be a slightly more boring year for spectating, but running around in the pits and looking at designs will be lots of fun.

[mrnoble]

Reasons to keep secrets still exist, including the "it doesn't work yet" reason, the "we don't want anyone to iterate something that will score as much as we can" reason, and the "we want to surprise you, just for fun" reason. I always love the reveal videos, too.

From all the discussion I've seen so far, I think 1339 has one very common idea, one rare idea, and one that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else, yet. I look forward to finding out if other teams thought of it too, or passed it by.

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Wouldn't that imply that the robot is extending outside the field border?

I do not recall anything in the rules disallowing movement outside 3 dimensional space.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by DareDad

I do not recall anything in the rules disallowing movement outside 3 dimensional space.

Shhhh, you are ruining our plan to build the Tardis!

[piersklein]

Our robot?

Return of the flappers...