Arms anyone?

[BrianR]

I think the word for it is an "articulated" arm.

One disadvantage to that is it becomes cumbersome for the driver to control is there are too many joints, and it also requires a great familiarity with the system in order to make it run well. You have a much more complex coordinate system, and that can cause some confusion, especially once you get on the opposite side of the rack.

The elevator is much more intuitive. You understand the cartesian coordinate system, and that makes it much simpler to learn, and you will probably be more proficient with this system.

Overall which is better? I'm not sure. Our team is going with an elevator, but we may throw something in with the "claw" to make it more versatile.

[6600gt]

Originally Posted by BrianR

I think the word for it is an "articulated" arm.

One disadvantage to that is it becomes cumbersome for the driver to control is there are too many joints, and it also requires a great familiarity with the system in order to make it run well. You have a much more complex coordinate system, and that can cause some confusion, especially once you get on the opposite side of the rack.

This is where the electrical and programming comes in to create a mini control model that is highly intuitive(at least we will try).

[Jonathan Norris]

Our team is having this same debate currently, and spend a good 2 hours today talking about this and we are still very split. There are distinct advantages to both, elevator (forklift) type system is obviously much simpler to implement and control, but has less freedom of movement compared to a 2-jointer. The elevator system also (depending on how it is designed) most likely heavier, and placing a heavy elevator on the front of a robot can wreak havoc on how the robot drives. However an elevator system allows the manipulator to be simpler and would be far easier to program an effective autonomous program. So there are large advantages and large disadvantages, all you have to do is limit the disadvantages.