Adapting robot to meet <R16> (was: WE NEED HELP)

[Liz Smith]

Like Alex Cormier said, we've been working on a team with a similar looking robot to the one you've described. Of course we could help a lot more with pictures, but I've done a lot of the "math" regarding our robot and the 80" rule on graph paper with a calculator.

Basically, what I did for my team's robot was that I looked at a top view of the robot and drew it to scale on graph paper. I took the back corners of the robot's bumpers and with my compass I drew two 80" circles extending out from each point. With that, you can draw in the length of your arm in the position it would extend from the robot. From there, it's pretty easy to figure out how much room you have in front of your robot for a claw mechanism. (Taking into consideration claw width at all times)

Then you can go draw a side view. Consider the arm and the claw two sides of a triangle. If the distance of the "hypotenuse" of the triangle is fixed, you can make it so that the reach is never longer than say... 80 inches from the back of your robot. An alternative if you have seasoned programmers is to fix the angle of that arm in the program...

Once that angle is calculated you may find that you have to change a bit of strategy or design.

You may shorten your arm, have to pick the ball up from the top, may have to pick the ball up and turn around and throw it "over your shoulder" to hurdle. This rule is tough, but I've found that with a little calculations and time and a lot of eraser marks, you can make a design like this work.

You can always PM me if you need any additional explanation or help.