pic: Team 1392 Kinematrix's Robot

[brownster]

loading photo ...

[chantilly_team]

pretty complex.

[AJunx]

That is awesome. I'm a huge fan.

Question: How many tetras can you stack at once?

-Andrew

[geeknerd99]

Having wasted 24+ hours on the camera...

NICE CAMERA MOUNT

(we took it off the day before we shipped, but weren't wise enough to put it back on when we did ship, so we're going to put it back on as soon as we get to regionals)

[Sterno]

Very interesting..what's the center tower for? stability? How far up can you reach?

[brownster]

Originally Posted by Sterno

Very interesting..what's the center tower for? stability? How far up can you reach?

The center tower's for mounting the pulley that raises the scissors and for stability, we can reach about 10 feet in the air...but we kinda broke our scissors just before we shipped the alminum gave..so we're thinking about reenforcing with other material..any suggestions?

[MasonMM]

how did it break? just bend? or snapped? and in what direction? What were the dimensions of the aluminum you were using before?

[brownster]

Originally Posted by MasonMM

how did it break? just bend? or snapped? and in what direction? What were the dimensions of the aluminum you were using before?

it actually snapped..the scissors have this weird place they got stuck...it was 1/4 or 1/2 inch square aluminum tubing..not sure..but ya we nee something close to the same dimensions but stronger

[Katy]

steel if you have the weight, titanium if you have the supply...same for carbon fiber...but isn't daydreaming nice?

Anyway...more realistically...bosch (spelling is probably wrong) Al would be close to the weight and the internal structure on it might help it hold up a little better...

How much weight do you have to work with?

But really honestly if it got "stuck" someplace you would probably be better off fixing it so it doesn't get stuck than getting a new material. A flaw like that could show up no matter what material you use...plus issues like weight and center of gravity...or even if it does hold and you still get jammed mid-match you could become useless.

[Chesteves]

hmm i would suggest extruded aluminum, once again if you have the weight. very nice stuff i might add, we used it on our last yr's robot.

[brownster]

Originally Posted by Chesteves

hmm i would suggest extruded aluminum, once again if you have the weight. very nice stuff i might add, we used it on our last yr's robot.

Actually we really only have like 5-7 pounds to work with..well from our scales..but thanks for the ideas

[RogerR]

i would advise against using extruded aluminum. a while back, a white paper was put up that compared the strengths of various profiles (square tubing aluminum and aluminum extrusion being two) and square tubing came out being much weaker. as others have said, the best option might be to go with a stronger material, such as steel, or maybe thicker wall diameter, if possible.

<edit> link for afore mentioned white paper </edit>

[brownster]

Originally Posted by RogerR

i would advise against using extruded aluminum. a while back, a white paper was put up that compared the strengths of various profiles (square tubing aluminum and aluminum extrusion being two) and square tubing came out being much weaker. as others have said, the best option might be to go with a stronger material, such as steel, or maybe thicker wall diameter, if possible.

Thanks very much, we were already thinking of steel too..but might have to only replace a few pieces (the key pieces) cus of weight limit

[Katy]

just to get a better feel of things...how much does the current structure weigh in Al?

[brownster]

the whole scissor structure weighs about 16 pounds