Tape measure climber club

[JohnFogarty]

Originally Posted by nick4130

Yeah! So what it is its two 3D printed housing that hold the tapes. Yes I said tapes. We put two tapes back to back to makes u shape having the tapes meet in the middle, it's chain driven by a 775 pro. Two little andymark wheels push out the tape and also retract it, it's also very consistent.

Could you post some pictures?

[The other Gabe]

are tape measures just like, invincible or something?

[Bob Potts]

The original design was posted by Drew from team 4564 (Thanks Drew!). The 3D printed housing and concept of how to drive the tape using the 1.625 Colson wheel was directly from his design. Our team modified the concept to include a pair of tape measures fed back to back. The whole package weighs less than 9 pounds.
These pictures are from our prototype, unfortunately we did not get too many pic’s of the final product. The 2.5” Colson wheels at the exit point were replaced with 2” AndyMark Blue Stealth wheels.

[Hgree56]

1720 from Indiana is apart of that club. I love their climber!!

[squinlan]

2836
https://youtu.be/TrQCUKrwDRQ?t=10m30s

[Type]

Originally Posted by Bob Potts

The original design was posted by Drew from team 4564 (Thanks Drew!). The 3D printed housing and concept of how to drive the tape using the 1.625 Colson wheel was directly from his design. Our team modified the concept to include a pair of tape measures fed back to back. The whole package weighs less than 9 pounds.
These pictures are from our prototype, unfortunately we did not get too many pic’s of the final product. The 2.5” Colson wheels at the exit point were replaced with 2” AndyMark Blue Stealth wheels.

This probably sounds like an odd question but how much does all of this weigh? My team is short on weight but I still think a climbing mechanism could be useful.

[fox46]

2013 Cybergnomes first climb in North Bay using "The Rapunzel Device"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzU6_JrqnlE

[Bob Potts]

Originally Posted by Type

This probably sounds like an odd question but how much does all of this weigh? My team is short on weight but I still think a climbing mechanism could be useful.

"The whole package weighs less than 9 pounds."

[Type]

Originally Posted by Bob Potts

"The whole package weighs less than 9 pounds."

Thanks for pointing that out, I probably should have read through the post a little better.

[Mcomer]

Camdenton LASER 3284 successfully hung with tape measure extension and lift via double tapes on each side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckPc...m-upload_owner

[Chris is me]

This is a pretty cool club. Are you accepting applications? We might be ready to file ours around Week 7.

Just curious - how many of you are actually using the tape measure as the device supporting the weight of your robot, versus using it just as a hook deployer? My gut says the latter is better.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This is a pretty cool club. Are you accepting applications? We might be ready to file ours around Week 7.

Just curious - how many of you are actually using the tape measure as the device supporting the weight of your robot, versus using it just as a hook deployer? My gut says the latter is better.

We're not doing anything like this for FRC, so I can't speak to these cases, but this fall our two FTC teams discovered that the former does not work well, even for smaller robots. The metal 'tape' ended up breaking off from the spools they were attached to, and the teams switched to a different material after their first two events.

Our two MidKnight Magic teams broke so many tape measures that the Inventors didn't have any left in our shop by the time build season came around. I think they ended up replacing the tapes at least 2 or 3 times an event.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Libby K

We're not doing anything like this for FRC, so I can't speak to these cases, but this fall our two FTC teams discovered that the former does not work well, even for smaller robots. The metal 'tape' ended up breaking off from the spools they were attached to, and the teams switched to a different material after their first two events.

Our two MidKnight Magic teams broke so many tape measures that the Inventors didn't have any left in our shop by the time build season came around. I think they ended up replacing the tapes at least 2 or 3 times an event.

What width and brand of tape measures were they using? Were the loads purely in tension, or was there significant torsion or shear?

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Drew4564

So the tapes actually tore away from the spool they were wound around? After my team's testing during build and first event, we only had one tape measure tear right near the hooks, and never had any issues regarding the spool. I also echo Mr. Lavery's questions.

Yes indeed. I'll see if I can dig some pictures of the breaks out of their Engineering Notebook folder, but they would break right before their attachment points on our spools. A pretty clean break straight across the tape measure.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

What width and brand of tape measures were they using? Were the loads purely in tension, or was there significant torsion or shear?

They used Stanley FatMax measures - the widest we could find.

Almost entirely tension. We tried to keep them as free of torsion as we could, but the robot would twist a little bit when it hit the upper churros (FTC field). For our uses it was worth switching to another climber - I'm now a little bit wary of tape measures as pure weight-bearing, but love them as hook-delivery systems.

[Bob Potts]

We use the tape measures together to lift the robot. We had one tape tear at the hook once (other held and we did not fall), and both broke at the same time once (we fell , but no damage ). Then we redesigned the hook to grab from the back of the bar. This puts a lot less stress at the hook. Did not have any other issues or failure after that change. The trick is making sure the hook does not kink the tape measure.