Team 578 can hurdle

[commodoredl]

Right now the boot weighs 12 lbs at the end. We'll also be weighing our robot down for better stability.

Originally Posted by rjmah

I wonder how sticky they'll be about the 80 inch cylinder rule. My guess is that you exceed it if your forks are extended and the boot is resetting at the same time.

That's a good point, we extended and checked and we're around 78.5 inches.
As for working, it will shoot every time, we only have problems trying to pick up the trackball with our forks, that's something we're going to try to improve before the 19th.

Our drive train, I haven't seen much more than a few seconds of it maneuvering, but we were going cautiously to make sure we could pick up the ball. I don't know what our top fps is right now.

[rjmah]

Nice work! It probably helps that you hug the ball to the carriage.

[sovereign]

We have a new traction system implemented in our drive train, so it's quite effective. The boot can be stopped mid-swing so it's also safe. I took several videos myself, but haven't gotten them to our media subteam yet.

[Drwurm]

Now that design might just win you an innovation award, very very creative.

Also, I was thinking, instead of using a 12 pound weight, you ought to just use your battery

[Doug Leppard]

Very interesting and creative.

[Wayne Doenges]

Looks neat and safe.
One question though. Have you tried it with a slightly deflated ball? Some teams have noticed that the balls inflation varies with temperature.
Hope you have a great year.

[DarkFlame145]

lol very nice, i like the design.

[Zuhaib Ali]

That is too insane! (in a good way)

[commodoredl]

here's a new video one of the mechanical members made. It has our first prototype we made in week 2, some videos of our practice bot being driven, and videos of the robot hurdling the trackball. Occasional commentary by our very own Colin Jacobs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlcVpOJYk5g

[FTCmisfit]

I just saw how its top heavy so why not raise it in autonomous and go with the flow?
-misfit

[commodoredl]

Well, we're hoping to be able to hurdle more than once, so we'll be raising it several times throughout the game. To counteract that we have about 20 to 30 pounds of weight to distribute near the bottom of the robot.

[Maggie27]

I'm very impressed. That works almost perfectly. (Besides the weight issue, of course) But that is truly amazing.
I enjoyed watching that.
Great idea & awesome job!!!

[Qbranch]

Yay I love it when people play physics to their advantage!

Isaac Newton would be proud.

-q

[sportzkrazzy]

how fast can it reload and go around the track?

[commodoredl]

Well I can't say for sure, because I wasn't there for the full day of testing they did, but I know that we were going to spend week 6 optimizing the ability to load the trackball onto the forks, and we are able to do it while moving already, so with luck we should be able to pull off 4-7 hurdles in a match.