Pros and Cons of Using Pneumatics

[Donut]

Our team has used pneumatics (with an on-board compressor) in 5 of our 6 robots, with this year being the first year we didn't use them. It actually took alot of convincing and arguing with the lead mentor to convince him we could get by without them this year and needed the weight save.

Pros have to be their ease of linear movement, the amount of power you can get from them, and their relatively low failure rate (we have never blown a fuse in competition, though for some reason they enjoy frying during demonstrations in the off-season). The ability to lock them in a final position and the difficulty in back-driving them are good as well. And although the compressor is heavy, the actual cylinders are relatively light and work well on long arm extensions that can't afford a large motor.

Cons are weight, space consumption (for the compressor and storage tanks), weight, limited quick use (if you repeatedly use them quickly you must wait a few seconds to get some air pressure back), and weight.

In all honesty we probably would have used them again this year if the compressor wasn't so heavy (and we're firm anti-believers of the idea of not having an on-board compressor for pneumatics). In 2005 we used a cylinder as the final extension on our arm (we didn't want a motor 11 feet in the air) and used two for a tetra holder that ended up being worthless and unused. In 2004 we used a cylinder for a ball claw and 2 cylinders for herders on each side of our robot. 2003 had an identical setup with the cylinders used for grabbing bins instead. 2002 used a cylinder to grab the mobile goals, a cylinder to raise our ball holder up above the goals, and a cylinder to release the balls into the goal. 2001 had some as well but I don't really remember that bot.