Dropping Ramp Issues

[Dan Zollman]

I don't think a lever is going to do what you want. A lever would trade off between strength (torque) and the distance you can push the ramp.

If you have the piston push the shorter end of the lever, and the longer end of the lever push the ramp over, then the end of the lever might go a farther distance, but you lose torque.

If you have the piston push the longer end, then you'll end up with more torque but a smaller output distance.

EDIT: Similar thing with a wheel...in terms of transferring rotational motion, levers, gears, and wheels are similar.

[Bill_Hancoc]

If you had a spring could you maybe put it somesort of mechanical lock on the ramp so that i cannon deploy until you disengage it. Maybe power it with a servo or something small. This way if you are concerned that it will deply accidentally there is always a good mechanical lock preventing it then you can still keep you current piston mount.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Bill_Hancoc

If you had a spring could you maybe put it somesort of mechanical lock on the ramp so that i cannon deploy until you disengage it.

this is what our ramp folks are building, usign a gas spring to lift and deploy the ramp (it also cushions the fall, due to careful spring placement), with a small pneumatic cylinder to securely lock the ramp in the stowed position.

Hopefully it will all be built by the end of the week and we can make it work

the ramp surfaces are done, and the supports and such are mostly designed and ready to build.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Just an idea - if you already have an arm on your robot that's used to pick up the ringers / keepers, maybe you can incorporate that into getting your ramps out. Shouldn't be a problem if you use something like a Fisher Price + the kit gearbox, we found the speed of it to be about perfect and it still have a lot of power.

[bsbllpss]

springs are stored energy otherwise illegal
newbs

[Mister_Juggles]

You could always have the pin/lock idea (where the piston pulls away something blocking the ramp from falling) and just spin your bot in the home zone. As long as your bot can spin in a somewhat small circle, then you might be able to pull it off.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Bill_Hancoc

If you had a spring could you maybe put it somesort of mechanical lock on the ramp so that i cannon deploy until you disengage it. Maybe power it with a servo or something small. This way if you are concerned that it will deply accidentally there is always a good mechanical lock preventing it then you can still keep you current piston mount.

Thirded. Use springs that are strong enough to knock your ramp over and change the function of your piston to disengage a latch. We're doing something similar, though we're using our ramp lifting motors to disengage the retaining system. The retaining system is still to be defined, but at worst we'll be using highly calibrated fishing line to tie the ramps together and just break it with our ramp motors.