Design Challenge: Baton

[phrontist]

The "schnarf"-age factor is key, as rickterson mentioned above.

I very much like the idea of being able to drive over a baton and get it into a hopper. The question then is, how do you get a baton into the end-effector mechanism that does all the fancy positioning? I'm thinking along the lines of a toothpick dispenser.



In case you have never actually looked closely at one of these, they consist of a big bin of toothpicks and a drum with a toothpick shaped indentation in it. When the drum rotates, a single tootpick ends up in the indentation and is deposited in the little tray.

So the robot I'm thinking of breaks down something like this:

1. A mechanism like those described above "sweeps" batons into a hopper
2. The armateur that is to place the baton would be able to move to the "tray" position at the press of a button. A sensor (banner? a simple button?) would determine whether a baton is currently in the tray, and if not, rotate the drum to put one there. This way, at all times, the driver can press a button and the end effector will grasp a single baton as long as one is available.

This would be a very fun robot to drive... all you would have to do is "run over" lots of batons and then load them in whatever orientation is required.

Now that this thread has become quasi-popular, the GDC is reverting their design back to the origional curling idea.