BEST Tetra Grabber

[Sugar_Bunny]

Thanks guys for the compliments. One of our design guys works at hardware store. As you know FIRST "haunts" you where ever you are. He found one of the dog leash loooking things you drill in to the ground. I know there's another name for it. Anyway he ended up bending PVC with a heat dryer to make it.

I personally thought 135's rake grabber was really effective. You guys where awesome in the final matches. I also enjoyed watching 111's robot pick up two in one motion from the auto. loading zone. 1024's design was very effective and very fast. Thanks for the high score at Boilermaker.

Jackie

[Eric Yahrmatter]

Originally Posted by monstermike

. Team 27 actually pulled down another robot when the opposing robot clamped down on the TETRA (ie; they didn't touch 27's robot at all, JUST THE TETRA, and 27 had such a firm hold over it, when they tried to drive away the opposing robot fell over), im sure it was an accident (no penalties), but it was still cool to see.

Yeah...that was us!

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

Please explain the active passiveness

It has a pivoting middle finger that, when lowered, can go into the tetra and then be raised, ripping it off the autoloader. Once raised, the finger is the middle spike of a trident. Pictures soon.

[MasonMM]

Originally Posted by Beta Version

I was at the houston regional in which 118 participated. I must say that that is one awsome grabber. there were many times where the sheer speed of thier ability to cap could have scored them a clean sweep, owning all goals. Whether it was proffesionalism or luncy I dont know, but the never did choose to own all of them

It was just part of our strategy... Unless we needed to run across the field we didn't. I think at Lone Star we may have only done it once, and that was because the opportunity was just so open. Every other match we did fine just controlling two rows and we never needed to go run around further away from our starting place.

[sua428]

I must say that the best tetra grabber would be team 71's. In addition to storing and lifting multiple tetras, team 71 was able to stabilize the dangling movement with a cone. It was very well thought out and performed greatly.

I am partial to say team 857 had the most unique grabber. They were my favorites at the Midwest Regional because of their grabber. Able to manipulate the shapes of the tetras in order to stack three or four on the robot's "back", team 857 could slide tetras up and swing them down onto the goal. It was a very keen concept if I may say so.

As far as the best hold on a tetra, I would say team 537's grabber accomplished it relatively well.

[cooknl]

Originally Posted by Airforce1000

Also, what some people don't realize, is that any robot that can carry more then 1 tetra at a time is vulnerable. 1641, who was the Mojave robotics team at Vegas was easily stopped. Their robot looked like Waldo. I saw them flip once while they were a good 15 feet up. Must've hurt. :\

A little off topic, but 1641 COULD be stopped, but it took a really good pusher, or sometimes even two, during which our alliance partners were capping away.

As for the fall, we were only capping one at that point, and we were just seeing if we could go higher than the other machine. Turned out we couldn't. Didn't hurt much, actually, one little piece snapped off and everything else was just fine. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for them, 64 (Gila Monsters) on the opposing team caught us on the way down.

That was the only time we tipped the entire competition, and it's not going to happen again, after some upgrades on Thursday at the Championship!

[Michael Leicht]

56 and 237

all i need to say

[JWhiskers]

Sorry about pulling you over bee's, believe me, it wasn't intentional.

I have to say that the most unique tetra grabber I've seen is 85's. Their two screws are just cool to watch in action.

I think that 868 was one of the most effective I've seen, they could almost always get 2 stacks of 4 and were hard to play defence on.

[Mark Pierce]

I was impressed with several simple but effective grippers at both GLR and West Michigan. I was especially impressed with several of the rookies at WMR. Unfortunately, I'd probably get the team numbers wrong if I attempted to list my favorites.

Originally Posted by JWhiskers

I have to say that the most unique tetra grabber I've seen is 85's.

I put the composite picture from our pit display on my website: Pierce Family Website. With any luck I'll get more of the pictures loaded this weekend.

P.S. Yes, Carl was reminded to wear his safety glasses after the shot.

[lynca]

The corkscrew idea is great! very stable but still able to quickly uncap,
it seems that baxter also demonstrated this concept.
It will be interesting to see the device at Nationals,

http://baxterbombsquad.com/

Does 85 or 16 have any complaints about the speed or consistency of using the corkscrew?

[Steve Yasick]

There are many good things about the cork-screw.

Very reliable. When we grab a tetra we won't drop it until we want to.

Easy to pick things up. Off the ground, human player or auto load

Easy to let things go. When we got stuck in other people just un screw them. big window for a drop zone on a goal.

Durable. PVC can take a lot of abuse!


Some bad things.

Tetra sway can be a problem.

Auto load zone is touchy.


Way to go Carl It works just like a candy machine!

Mr.Y

[Thor]

Thanks for the compliments guys. BOB (85) is a fun robot to drive. Eric and I have put BOB through alot of tough matches with only minor repairs. The screws have been incredibly reliable and durable (still on our first set). The only thing that I can see as a problem with the screws would be the swaying. Usually as the arm is brought down with the tetra centered over its target it stops swaying but once in a while it'll miss and I'll have to make a corrective movement which takes time. Otherwise the speed is great we haven't had a tetra fall off or get pulled off yet, however we have intentionally unscrewed them to avoid being pulled over. Auto loading is becoming less of an issue as Eric and I figure out the best procedure. It just takes time and practice on those short practice Thursdays.



Have a great weekend and hope to see you all at the Championship, feel free to stop by our pits and chat.

-Carl

[Meyerman]

team 237s gripper was pretty darn cool looking and preformed well as always. 103 didnt drop many tetras either and we went to two regionals they were at.

[Ein]

Originally Posted by Cory

Active tetra grabber-173
Passive-20/254

Ours was most definitly actuated. It bent at the wrist and was attached to a extending boom on a 270 degree turret.

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

I did see 69, 330, and 980, but I wasn't entirely impressed with their "chopstick" design (granted, they were effective, but they did have their weaknesses). The advantage to it was that they could all cap very fast (I knew when 69 picked 330 that they were going to win the regional). I did like 188's gripper (kind of like our's but we have an active 3-pronged gripper). With all of these teams, if you bumped them hard enough, they could lose it. The difference was how easily they could lose it.

I guess the one I liked the best was 69s just because it was so darn fast. They didn't get that #1 seed for nothing!

-Daniel

We were number 1 seed I'd say 69 and us were extremely evenly matched, one on one.

[Justin_302]

135 has a quick and effective method of picking up tetras and stacking them.

I believe our method of picking tetras up is effective. We can stack vision tetras which i didnt see too much of.

[Daniel Brim]

Originally Posted by Ein

We were number 1 seed I'd say 69 and us were extremely evenly matched, one on one.

I was talking about the SoCal regional. I haven't had an opportunity to see your gripper but I might at championships .