World's Lightest Ramps

[Dragonking]

Originally Posted by Ronnie314

Our ramp weighs in at 0.4 pounds...pretty light I would say.
-Ronnie

Our ramp also weighs about .4lbs

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

I understand the strategy of using a tote as a ramp. However I have yet to see my team keep the base tote from moving.

1796 pulled it off quite well.

[JB987]

Originally Posted by dodar

Those ramps dont weight Zero though.

Well of course the totes weigh something, but considering they add 0 weight to your robot, they officially weigh nothing

[EricH]

Originally Posted by wasayanwer97

Depends how loosely you define a ramp.

If your goal is to just get the totes to land correctly, all it takes is a sheet of some slick material in front of the chute to get the totes to land properly. The reduced friction against the edge allows the tote to just slide forward and land on its bottom rather than rotate about its edge and land on its front.

This.

3408 deployed one at Inland Empire. It looked like some foam core (actually, call it a couple of old pit signs maybe) with half a pool noodle attached to the bottom of one of them and some light rope. (This was after the velcro on the bottom was removed...) That had to be pretty light.

[cglrcng]

Originally Posted by JB987

How about 0 lbs? There are dozens of ramps available on the field...

Yes there certainly are, and they even come in 2 custom colors.

[cglrcng]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

1796 pulled it off quite well.

They certainly did, and the invisible tether worked even better...Not once did I ever see them drive over it...Delivery smooth as silk too.

[Dragonking]

What have you guys found to be the best tethers that are both light but won't get tangles in the drive train?

[Chris is me]

*toot toot*

So obviously we're not the world's lightest according to this thread, but we built a proper ramp at 1.5-1.6 lbs. Made of lightened, corrugated display board, with just the bare minimum amount of 3/4" by 1/16" aluminum angle and plenty of 3M double stick tape, it did the job just fine. Dropped a stack on it, drove over it with the robot, grabbed it and folded it into our robot with our intake... no matter what we did to this ramp, as soon as we grabbed it off the field it sprung back to its original shape, ready for more. Never broke.

[Ichlieberoboter]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

So obviously we're not the world's lightest according to this thread, but we built a proper ramp at 1.5-1.6 lbs. Made of lightened, corrugated display board, with just the bare minimum amount of 3/4" by 1/16" aluminum angle and plenty of 3M double stick tape, it did the job just fine. Dropped a stack on it, drove over it with the robot, grabbed it and folded it into our robot with our intake... no matter what we did to this ramp, as soon as we grabbed it off the field it sprung back to its original shape, ready for more. Never broke.

Wow. That is a nice ramp.

[Dominick Ferone]

Not sure of the exact weight of our ramp but its made from a trifold cardboard covered the top in whiteboard paper to give totes extra moment and consistency and two sign post stakes as legs with numbers attached on the sides.
Our tether on the other hand weighs about 2 pounds

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by Dragonking

What have you guys found to be the best tethers that are both light but won't get tangles in the drive train?

We found that 550 paracord works quite well. We drove over it with both 6in omni-wheels and tration wheels with no problems. our alliance partners also drove over it with 8in mecanum wheels light it was not even there. For .3lb you get about 40ft of tether. paracord is also dirt cheap and comes in bright colors.

[Dominick Ferone]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

We found that 550 paracord works quite well. We drove over it with both 6in omni-wheels and tration wheels with no problems. our alliance partners also drove over it with 8in mecanum wheels light it was not even there. For .3lb you get about 40ft of tether. paracord is also dirt cheap and comes in bright colors.

We used paracord initially but it would catch the bolt heads for the mecanum wheels and wind up around the spacer and slow one side. This issue happed last year when our elastic tubing broke and did the same thing.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

We found that 550 paracord works quite well. We drove over it with both 6in omni-wheels and tration wheels with no problems. our alliance partners also drove over it with 8in mecanum wheels light it was not even there. For .3lb you get about 40ft of tether. paracord is also dirt cheap and comes in bright colors.

We used paracord as well. It would occasionally end up wrapped around our drive axles, but that only happened a couple times and didn't cause significant issue.

[c.shu]

We built one that weighed in at .53 lbs. Not sure if it is what we will be going with though.

[rick.oliver]

About 1.8 lbs, including the tether. Made from PVC tubing and fittings, plus tape. Sprayed it with silicone. Made on Friday at CIR after we determined that we had a few pounds to spare.

Redesigned for QCR; up in weight; still PVC, but using Polycarb (0.030").