Canburglar Safety

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by JVN

NEVER any fear here -- especially because I've never been accused of being energetic.

From what I've seen, your energy is deceptively high, John.

However, I was thinking about the concern you expressed for the top-tier canburglars. And I really do expect to see the best of them facing off at Einstein (the much-better-than-OK corral) to see who is quickest on the autonomous draw. The teams that get there will be quite experienced at developing effective, reliable, AND safe robots.

[Hallry]

In Semifinal 3 at the Silicon Valley Regional, part of 4486's canburglar caught onto a canburglar 'net' of 2485 on the opposing alliance and tossed it up into the air, before it landed next to the alliance station wall on the field. While it was wild to watch, it wouldn't have been too safe if it had flown off in a different direction and landed outside of the field.

It occurs at 2:10:36 here: http://new.livestream.com/accounts/1...events/3935043

[kathrynmariel]

Originally Posted by Loose Screw

Safety is a very important aspect to always keep in mind, and each game has an aspect that is "dangerous". In 2013 someone at MSC took a frisbee straight to the face from looking into his robot's shooter.

2013 and 2014's games seemed questionable to me in regards to safety. Shooting hard frisbees the entire length of the field? Robots high on a flimsy pyramid? Throwing a giant ball at average head height? Those all came to mind, and unfortunately some people were injured.

When it comes to canburglars, the goal is to slam a small hook into the opening (or reach around the back), and drive forwards as fast as you can.

As an inspector, I'll be looking for ways to safely secure and disarm your canburglar. You don't want them to accidentally fire right onto a team member.

Another thing that's been a staple for robot design is to make sure none of your appendages have a pointy or sharp element to them, usually less than 1 square inch in area.

Finally, I would reccomend designing a "fail point" in your arms so if they do interlock with another team, they can safely break rather than exploding pieces into the crowd or other robots. Having a controlled failure is always better than an uncontolled burst of parts.

A piece of advise I would give to drive teams setting up is that if you know your robot and an opposing robot are going for cans, and there's a chance that you'll interlock, try to go for a different set. The earlier video on CD was a glimpse of what's to come for future can battles.

Going as far as safety is concerned I was my teams photographer last year with Arial Assist and in one of the matches I got a ball to the face and my camera hit me in the face... I wasn't injured but it still shows that every game has some element that is dangerous

[Bennett548]

Seeing more safe canburglars at Bedford has eased my concern a little bit.

My guess is that can burglars will get about 20% faster by the end of the season, and I think this can be accomplished with little to no stored energy, making them much safer than the giant hair-trigger mousetraps I was worried about before.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by Bennett548

My guess is that can burglars will get about 20% faster by the end of the season

They will be much faster than that, teams will be pushing the limits of what is possible with the strength of materials available to us.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Bennett548

Seeing more safe canburglars at Bedford has eased my concern a little bit.

My guess is that can burglars will get about 20% faster by the end of the season, and I think this can be accomplished with little to no stored energy, making them much safer than the giant hair-trigger mousetraps I was worried about before.

How fast the fastest canburglars get will be determined largely by how quickly they can release massive amounts of stored energy.

This is a dangerous challenge. The GDC designed it to be an incredibly dangerous challenge. (I ask myself again, why?) Teams that intend to go head-to-head on Einstein have exactly zero reason to stop at ~20% faster, and they certainly have no reason not to store energy. This is essentially an arms race; the public time to beat is already like 0.25s. Beyond that, it's mostly a hidden war, but I've inspected (and reffed next to) several stored energy grabbers thus far.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Siri

How fast the fastest canburglars get will be determined largely by how quickly they can release massive amounts of stored energy.

This is a dangerous challenge. The GDC designed it to be an incredibly dangerous challenge. (I ask myself again, why?) Teams that intend to go head-to-head on Einstein have exactly zero reason to stop at ~20% faster, and they certainly have no reason not to store energy. This is essentially an arms race; the public time to beat is already like 0.25s. Beyond that, it's mostly a hidden war, but I've inspected (and reffed next to) several stored energy grabbers thus far.

But at a certain point it's useless to go faster. You have to grab them and get them off the step, or block the other grabber before the opponent can latch on. Once they latch on, it's a tug-of-war/ lockdown.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by asid61

You have to grab them and get them off the step, or block the other grabber before the opponent can latch on. Once they latch on, it's a tug-of-war/ lockdown.

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by asid61

But at a certain point it's useless to go faster. You have to grab them and get them off the step, or block the other grabber before the opponent can latch on. Once they latch on, it's a tug-of-war/ lockdown.

This has been covered countless times already, all you have to do is get to the hole first. It's not hard to stop the other team once you're there.

[George Nishimura]

Originally Posted by themccannman

This has been covered countless times already, all you have to do is get to the hole first. It's not hard to stop the other team once you're there.

What about this (from team 16)?

[themccannman]

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

What about this (from team 16)?

Much smaller target to hit, it's inherently less reliable. Also see 971, it's easy to angle your hooks so that the cans get knocked off as soon as your hooks hit.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by themccannman

Much smaller target to hit, it's inherently less reliable. Also see 971, it's easy to angle your hooks so that the cans get knocked off as soon as your hooks hit.

IIRC there were teams at SVR going for handle grabs (5076 or some team around there). We can do this ourselves with consistency, and at a speed considerably faster than anything I've seen so far (we didn't use this at SVR due to unforseen geometry issues). It's a little faster for the effort/power because there is no need to telescope (not to mention the weight is lower), but I will admit it's harder to line up than a center grab. Thanks for directing me to 971's grab, it looks interesting.
It remains to be seen what champs will look like.

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by asid61

IIRC there were teams at SVR going for handle grabs (5076 or some team around there). We can do this ourselves with consistency, and at a speed considerably faster than anything I've seen so far (we didn't use this at SVR due to unforseen geometry issues). It's a little faster for the effort/power because there is no need to telescope (not to mention the weight is lower), but I will admit it's harder to line up than a center grab. Thanks for directing me to 971's grab, it looks interesting.
It remains to be seen what champs will look like.

If you pivot from the very bottom corners, there is no need to telescope. That said, inertia is still higher.

[Bennett548]

I can confirm that if the pivot is below about 200 mm [~7.9 in], no telescoping or other extending is needed to reach the lid of the can. But it does require a doglegged arm to avoid hitting the landfill totes.

Grabbing the can handles would be faster, but I feel that the gap you have to hit between the lid and the handle is probably smaller than the placement tolerance of the containers on the step.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Bennett548

Grabbing the can handles would be faster, but I feel that the gap you have to hit between the lid and the handle is probably smaller than the placement tolerance of the containers on the step.

Virtually all grabbers I've seen deliberately adjust to the actual positions of the Cans in front of them. (They're not shooting blind into the placement tolerances.)