80" Cylinder Diameter Rule

[RoboGeek99]

Did anyone besides us find out after they were done building the robot that it was outside of the 80" Cylinder Diameter Rule? Because we had to work out a billion and three kinks just to find out that at a certain position we are outside of the confines of the rule

For all of the kinks and troubles this robot caused us we named it "The Accursed Panther"

[Tottanka]

It is perfectly OK to be ABLE to break that rule.
Penalties will be given only if you actually break it, so don't worry about it unless you can't function at your best without breaking it...

[RoboGeek99]

Well... I guess we can function but we wont be able to do half of the functions we were going to do

[dtengineering]

I can appreciate your pain. The rule book is quite complex, and, as rookies, you probably are only now getting involved in the CD community. There was a big discussion of the rule here several weeks ago. Even as a five year veteran team we missed the significance of this rule (namely a 38" robot is going to have a VERY hard time grasping a 40" ball without going outside the cylinder) until we discussed it with other teams. We ditched our lifter design in week 2 and went for a launcher instead.

I'm glad you've got it worked out so that you can compete. Just getting a robot in a shipping crate and through tech inspection is a massive accomplishment in your first year. After that it gets easier as you get to know the rules better, see a bunch of other solutions, and become part of a very supportive robotics community.

Other common rookie challenges involve meeting the weight and size limitations (mostly the weight limit) and keeping all the wiring and electrical connections within the detailed (but fairly easy to understand) rules in section 8 of the manual.

Good luck!

Jason

[StevenB]

This is a picky detail, but remember that it's not an 80" cylinder. It's 80" in any one horizontal dimension.

[RoboGeek99]

Are you sure because i heard it was cilynder not a horizontal dimention

[MrForbes]

The cylinder thing is just an example...but the rule states that it is the maximum horizontal measurement that matters.

This has been discussed to death...and there are several threads about it on the Q&A

http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=596

[reflion]

Eugh, I hope this doesn't happen to us. We ran some calculations and it was close then, but after a bunch of design modifications we haven't run any more calculations since we're running out of time (we STILL haven't finished the manipulator, the most important part of the bot), and if we find out in the next week that we're outside our limit, it'll be too late to fix anything.