Car Nack Predicts 2010-1

[Cory]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I think we wont see it largely because the top team is unlikely to be comfortable supporting 450(ish)lbs from their tower grabber widget. If its beefy enough to hold up 450 lbs of robot, its going to be heavy, and i doubt anyone is going to make that design tradeoff.

This is not true. You can very easily support 450 lbs of robots with a very light mechanism.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Cory

This is not true. You can very easily support 450 lbs of robots with a very light mechanism.

I'm with Cory on this. There are some VERY simple solutions out there that will move an alliance from a +6 bonus to a +8 bonus with very little effort and minimal mass impact. I will be amazed if several teams do not figure it out and make it work at the competitions. I understand Car Nack's concerns on this one. But I am willing to bet (very cautiously, because going against Car Nack is pretty much like spitting into the wind) that Car Nack will be wrong on this one.

-dave


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[Cory]

Originally Posted by dlavery

I'm with Cory on this. There are some VERY simple solutions out there that will move an alliance from a +6 bonus to a +8 bonus with very little effort and minimal mass impact. I will be amazed if several teams do not figure it out and make it work at the competitions. I understand Car Nack's concerns on this one. But I am willing to bet (very cautiously, because going against Car Nack is pretty much like spitting into the wind) that Car Nack will be wrong on this one.

-dave


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I do agree with Car Nack. It's not that it's technically unfeasible, it's that you're relying on others to do so, which means sitting around and waiting, potentially for a long time.

[Enigma's puzzle]

I have to agree with Car Nack, it will be tricky, but i believe if there was a robot out there that allowed a simultaneous climbing by two robots at once that would really relieve some of the pressure of staying on the field to score, as they could wait longer until they have to set up, because both other teams could climb at the same time.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Enigma's puzzle

I have to agree with Car Nack, it will be tricky, but i believe if there was a robot out there that allowed a simultaneous climbing by two robots at once that would really relieve some of the pressure of staying on the field to score, as they could wait longer until they have to set up, because both other teams could climb at the same time.

but how would you fit such a robot into a 84 inch cylinder?

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by IndySam

but how would you fit such a robot into a 84 inch cylinder?

When you see the answer to this you will kick yourself for not thinking of it. It is really simple. The question we still have is, "Is it worth it?".

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

When you see the answer to this you will kick yourself for not thinking of it. It is really simple. The question we still have is, "Is it worth it?".

Bit of a thread bump, but this has been eating at me a little lately.

What is the very simple solution to this problem?

[Jim Schaddelee]

I was wrong car nack was right. But the simple solution to lift two robot was a robot that could cover the bar with a thin material so when the two other hanging robots went to hang they would be suspended on thin material "bar cover" not on the bar. The problems with suspending two robots were. First carrying the weight of two robots. This would not be a problems because the bar not the bar cover carry the load. Second, How do teams know where to hang from on your robot without destroying it. This is not a problem with a bar cover because they teams would hang on the bar just as they were designed to do. The third issues was time required for the task. Again, the bar cover solves this as long as the bar cover is placed first the other hanging bots now need only to lift a inch not 20 to get the bonus. So then why didn't team 107 make a bar cover? Not enough consistent hanging team that hung from the top bar.

[OZ_341]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

...... So then why didn't team 107 make a bar cover? Not enough consistent hanging team that hung from the top bar.

Exactly the discussion that 341 had. We actually toyed around with the idea of making a 469 style robot, combined with the covering idea to make the ultimate stationary robot that could end a match. However, in the end we sort of lost our "guts" for pursuing the 469 strategy and quickly realized that while the covering would work, it was not really worth the manufacturing effort or engineering resources.
It will be interesting to see how some teams decide to modify their machines for off-season events. Should be a very fun off-season.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

I was wrong car nack was right. But the simple solution to lift two robot was a robot that could cover the bar with a thin material so when the two other hanging robots went to hang they would be suspended on thin material "bar cover" not on the bar.

That's exactly what I was talking about too. The problem was it just took you out of the game too long to do it.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Jim Schaddelee

But the simple solution to lift two robot was a robot that could cover the bar with a thin material so when the two other hanging robots went to hang they would be suspended on thin material "bar cover" not on the bar.

This is exactly what we did. We had a tremendously consistent hanger (that let us down the last match at Championship due to a loose set screw...), and a bar covering system.

The problem with the bar covering system is that when we were rammed -- hard -- while elevated at FLR, the bar covering system was knocked askew and came into contact with the ball return mechanism. We were not penalized (red-carded) because Dante in his mercy and good-refereemanship determined that the ramming by an opposing robot meant that our opponent had caused the penalty, so it would not count against us...

...but he told us to get it fixed so that it couldn't happen again, so we had to pull it off. T'was sad.

[EricH]

While there was never a double suspension, elimination scores were much higher than qualifier scores. Car Nack gets a split decision on this one-- #1 is wrong, #2 is correct.

[Jared Russell]

Even after ship, we were still working on a "bar coverer". But once we saw the wonderful diversity of hangers during week one events we abandoned the idea.

[Enigma's puzzle]

Originally Posted by IndySam

but how would you fit such a robot into a 84 inch cylinder?

I have ideas for it, even though my team wont attempt it and i dont believe they should attempt it, but with a little innovation, i think you could do it eazier than you think.

A robot that has bars on both....

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by IndySam

but how would you fit such a robot into a 84 inch cylinder?

It can be done with drive-on platforms, barely. I'm sure that there is a much more clever solution.