pic: 587's 2007 robot, OCCAM VII: Deadline

[lukevanoort]

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Wow. Looks like a beast of an arm. How tall does the arm extend to? And did you have any issues with a high center of gravity?

Looks like quite a beast... I'm impressed.

[JimHull]

That looks heavy. What is the weight of your robot? Beautiful machine though.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by 114ManualLabor

Wow. Looks like a beast of an arm. How tall does the arm extend to? And did you have any issues with a high center of gravity?

Looks like quite a beast... I'm impressed.

Thanks, in the past we've had little luck with arms, so we're quite proud of this one. It extends to ~9 ft. The centre of gravity is not too bad, overall this robot is quite short (several inches under 4 ft), and most of the motors and the battery are mounted pretty low, plus we'll have bumpers mounted to further lower the COG and act as wheelie bars.

Originally Posted by JimHull

That looks heavy. What is the weight of your robot? Beautiful machine though.

~115 lbs. The arm without motors is actually about 20-25 lbs, the reason it looks so much heavier is that it's made out of four pieces of aluminum angle and one square tube, and in this picture the angle has it's long side facing the camera. Thanks for the comment on its looks, but if you saw it from the other side, you'd probably think differently. 13 PWM cables from the arm/turret sensors + 4 from the camera + 1 for the pressure switch + 6 for Victors + 2 for spikes + 1 for the gyro in a tight amount of space leads to a really nasty looking electrical board. (We'll try to fix that at VCU, we don't want our insectors pulling out their hair trying to see what is going on in there)

[sdcantrell56]

What are you using that tape measure for? I ask because we were going to use it for a certain task also.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

What are you using that tape measure for? I ask because we were going to use it for a certain task also.

It has been modified to accept a potentiometer to measure lift height.

[sdcantrell56]

That is exactly what we were going to use it for.

[meatmanek]

Very nice. One question though:

Why bother making a turret that turns everything but the drivetrain when you can just ... turn the drivetrain?

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by meatmanek

Very nice. One question though:

Why bother making a turret that turns everything but the drivetrain when you can just ... turn the drivetrain?

The idea was that we would use a pair of cameras to aim the turret, drive near the rack, choose a height and press score. We couldn't squeeze the funds for a second camera, and didn't have enough debug time to make the vision come to fruition. (Actually, no debug time) We'll still try for autonomous scores with the camera, and maybe an ultrasonic sensor that we're thinking about mounting, but our operator control won't depend on it. A side benefit of the turret is that it makes it very easy to reach the floor since we can start with our arm stowed over the robot, then rotate into its playing position facing the front, so it only has to reach a very short distance to get to the floor.

PS: Can anyone identify all the 'bots this one pulls inspiration from. There are a total of 6 robots providing inspiration to at least one function, the most recent ones were from '05, the oldest from '01.

[sporno]

OMFG THAT IS SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...... IDK ABOUT YOU , BUT IM SEEING ANOTHER 5-5-5 THIS YEAR..... ( 540,510,587)

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by sporno

OMFG THAT IS SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...... IDK ABOUT YOU , BUT IM SEEING ANOTHER 5-5-5 THIS YEAR..... ( 540,510,587)

Thanks. Another 555 deal would be awesome, you guys are looking really, really good this year, and one can assume that 510 will have a nice robot. I guess we'll see in nine days eh?

[kevin.li.rit]

What kind of transmissions are those?

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

Are you sure you didn't steal this from Coach K's office containing secret plans to nuke Chapel Hill?

I'm loving the whole turret idea! Your robot is way too underrated! It's easily the most awesome bot I've seen so far.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by Coffeeism

What kind of transmissions are those?

AndyMark single speeds.

Originally Posted by Sgraff_SRHS06

Are you sure you didn't steal this from Coach K's office containing secret plans to nuke Chapel Hill?

Steal? No, no no, we designed the delivery system for the device. Just kidding, Duke actually is one of our sponsors though...

Originally Posted by Sgraff_SRHS06

I'm loving the whole turret idea! Your robot is way too underrated! It's easily the most awesome bot I've seen so far.

Thanks! Although I think some of the robots that have been popping up on the Chief could eat us for breakfast...

[Sgraff_SRHS06]

It's because all I've seen has been claws, claws, claws;;;;outside of the ThunderChickens and you and 1515. It's either your design or 1515's that could easily be a dominant robot.