pic: Team 488 XBot two lifts getting closer

[Fred Sayre]

loading photo ...

[zander_108]

wow... thats really amazing.. how much are you guys going to weigh, and are you going to have an arm? really nice job.

[Mr. Van]

Looks great!
How much force do those gas springs have? (I'm guessing a lot!)
How do you reset them?
How do you prevent an accidental release?

Will you please come down to Southern California? We're in need of more parking spaces here...

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599
RoboDox

[Fred Sayre]

Originally Posted by zander_108

wow... thats really amazing.. how much are you guys going to weigh, and are you going to have an arm? really nice job.

We are trying to reserve about 10lbs for "special weapons" but overall our estimates say we will come in really close to the 110lbs for our height class. We will probably be able to use any extra pounds we might end up with. Those platforms weigh a lot, getting close to 25-30lbs each.

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

Looks great!
How much force do those gas springs have? (I'm guessing a lot!)
How do you reset them?
How do you prevent an accidental release?

Will you please come down to Southern California? We're in need of more parking spaces here...

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599
RoboDox

I believe they are 125lb gas springs. So overall about 250lbs of force on each side. Hopefully with what is burned up in friction and all of that we should be at a reasonable amount for lifting robots.

Right now we have safety release pins to disengage the springs for storage and at the end of the matches. Loading the mechanism is one of the primary tasks left for us - we have plenty of ideas but we will see what works best. Whatever our release mechanism ends up looking like, safety and prevention of accidental release is obviously the primary concern. We are working on a method of robustly latching them down. The gas springs release at a quite moderate rate though, so no slamming or flipping or any of that would be of concern.

You guys are going to the LA regional? We will be attending the Silicon Valley regional, close but not quite! Good luck though!

[Gabe]

Have you tried loading the ramps down with enough people to evercome the force of the gas spring, to reset the?

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Gabe

Have you tried loading the ramps down with enough people to evercome the force of the gas spring, to reset the?

The gas springs aren't fixed in place yet, so we've not tried to collapse or lift anything with them yet. We'll take care of that next, I imagine. We changed the mounting scheme for the gas springs a bit to allow us to quickly disengage them from the lifting mechanism at the end of a match so we don't have to our team storm the field and sit on the things to reset them, and as a result, the location where the gas springs are pinned is not yet known. I have to redo some math and modeling to find out where it's supposed to go.

[jfish456]

How are you planning to hinge the lifts to the robot and then deploy them? Also what are your thoughts on keeping the springs compressed and then releasing them?

[GVDrummer]

Thats nice... the length would be really helpful if you just let them down in the beginning of the game right in front of the opponents tubes so they couldn't get to them.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by jfish456

How are you planning to hinge the lifts to the robot and then deploy them? Also what are your thoughts on keeping the springs compressed and then releasing them?

The lifts will be hinged along the front and back part of our chassis. They'll effectively be bolted upright and released by a Globe motor-powered mechanism that will pull the pin supporting them upright. Their center of gravity lies on outer side of the pivot and so the ramps will fall under their own power. We're working on dampening their impact with the carpet. This is a change from our initial plan which called for their rotation to be powered because of the documented issues with the BaneBots 42 mm planetary gearboxes.

The mechanism that keeps the springs depressed is a work in progress.

Originally Posted by GVDrummer

Thats nice... the length would be really helpful if you just let them down in the beginning of the game right in front of the opponents tubes so they couldn't get to them.

We're 10' across with the lifts lowered, but not deployed, so we can cover almost half the playing field. We may find that blocking their access to the ringers may be a viable strategy, but we're still hopeful that we'll have some ability to score ringers, as well.