How did you scale?

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Mike Marandola

What kind of knot did you use to tie the Spectra to the hook?

We used Spectra as well! Can't recommend it enough. This was our knot of choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0B6tYTVHVM . (Dyneema is another brand name that's similar to Spectra) A splice like this gets rid of the tight bends that the rope sees in a traditional knot and makes for a stronger splice. The big benefit is that it's a lot easier to deal with than a normal knot.

We also used a variation on this splice that was adjustable, so we could make a length of rope with a fixed eye splice at one end and an adjustable eye splice at the other end, giving us a rope that we could make fine adjustments to the length. We used these ropes for our climbing rope, our suspension locking mechanisms, and the hard stop for our catapult.

With all of the crazy things going on with our robot last year, the splices we made with the Spectra lines was my favorite part. If you don't have some to play with, go buy some. It's one of those things that you never knew you needed until you used it.

[Maximillian]

5254 had two different scaling mechanisms that made it onto our robot. During build season we prioritized climbing very low so when we finally got around to building a scaler we were left without much space to put it.

For championships we built a 118 style grappling hook. This started with a prototype that was made out of a driveway reflector. This then turned into our final hook and launcher made out of a PVC pipe and a piece of 1x1 versatubing. The hooks were spring loaded closed with surgical tubing and held open by a bar that would break away when the harpoon hits the climbing bar. This worked on our practice bot but was never successful in competition. We were having a variety of robot issues at champs so we never had enough time to get it working.

For the offseason we designed a new intake with a climber that mounted on top. This mechanism was a scissor lift that is sprung upwards with surgical tubing. When winched down the hook would detach from the velcro and tape holding the hook to the robot. Our winch was a 775 Pro in a VersaPlanetary using 2 VersaHubs and a ratcheting wrench. You can watch one of the matches where it worked here.