"Playing Cheap"

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by OneAngryDaisy

What truly amazes me is the low volume of teams who can hang from the floor- those steps are extremely dangerous, I know when my team was testing our treads we flipped every time, yet so many have designed elaborate drivetrains to go up those steps.. I somewhat wish we had a 'cool' drivetrain also, but it sure is a luxury to not have to worry about those steps. Did most of you think about this option instead of going up the steps?
*This was my opinion only and does not represent team 341*

Hanging from the floor.. Yeah, that would be nice.. but.

I think our major problem with hanging from the floor came from the fact that our mechanisn at the end of our arm needs strength from the arm to lift itself up.
We kept that design simple and went with a one jointed system with a pneumatic extension. If we had any more weight or joints we might be able to hang from the floor, but may not be able to sucessfully intergrate our mechanism into play, and would more than likely be over weight.
We are pushing 130.0 as it is now.
Remember that you also have to take the trigonometry of folding up a mechanism that will fit in the starting profile when designing an arm that will reach more than 10' in the air to grab that bar.