Celt-X 5406 presents 'Guillermo'

[philso]

Another amazingly thoughtful design! With rookies like you and other young teams like Makeshift, Waterloo will be tough. Unfortunately (or fortunately), we will be at Bayou so I will have to watch the archived videos.

Do the grey rollers at the front spin backwards to slow down or stop the totes? Are the white rollers passive? Am I correct in thinking that the whole upper structure is attached to the chassis using 8 bolts?

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by philso

Do the grey rollers at the front spin backwards to slow down or stop the totes? Are the white rollers passive? Am I correct in thinking that the whole upper structure is attached to the chassis using 8 bolts?

The white rollers are passive (they could have been replaced with a plastic sheet, but that's what we started with, and it worked so we kept them). The black rollers spin forward, just slow enough to brake the totes and then drop them nicely in front of the bumper - they were a late addition, but they work pretty well!

You are right that the superstructure pieces connect to the base with just a few bolts through 1/4 inch panel nuts (with washers to adjust heights). It isn't the lightest way to build a robot, but the modularity let us get some mechanism built while the others were still being worked out, and makes repairs easier.

Thanks for your interest!

[Matt Ciprietti]

As school board-mates, all of 4039 are super proud of 5406 and their awesome robot. When I first saw it all put together I just laughed and thought that no one would believe they were rookies, either

The beauty of the Waterloo regional (and Ontario in general) is that it drives teams to compete like this. It really is true that successful robotics programs breed other successful ones, and Ontario is stacked with awesome teams all within about an hour's drive of each other, forming a great community up here.

Go 5406!

[philso]

Originally Posted by nuclearnerd

You are right that the superstructure pieces connect to the base with just a few bolts through 1/4 inch panel nuts (with washers to adjust heights). It isn't the lightest way to build a robot, but the modularity let us get some mechanism built while the others were still being worked out, and makes repairs easier.

Did you actually build and test the superstructure before attaching it to the chassis? Did you find any disadvantages to this approach?

[nuclearnerd]

Originally Posted by philso

Did you actually build and test the superstructure before attaching it to the chassis? Did you find any disadvantages to this approach?

We tested the elevator separately, but the ramp and roller came later. We also tested our drive base before integration.

I can't think of a major disadvantage of the bolt-on superstructure except for weight. The panel nuts are dead easy, although we did have some challenge lineing up mounting holes.

The modularity allowed us also to withhold our elevator after bag day so we could mount it in our practice chassis (a 2012 c-frame donated by MakeShift - thanks guys!) That saved us a lot of work (and cost) on the practice bot. We hope to remount everything on Guillermo within an hour of un-bagging.

[safiq10]

Wow. The skill of rookie teams just keeps on increasing! Keep going guys, You can guarantee that I will be shouting at my screen cheering you guys on!