Robot Lifting

[Aren_Hill]

they were oriented vertically for the majority of the match, then dropped down at the end.

[Chris is me]

Some tips if you do try wings I learned from extremely simple and not very good prototypes:

1. With a robot roughly max width, you're just short of the max horizontal width on each side of the robot to fit in the 84 inch cylinder. So your forks would probably look like this:

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2. Strong materials and fixed joints are key to cutting weight down. Once the forks are to the sides of your robot, an in bumper way to "lock" them helps, or a way to raise them ~5 degrees then lock to help ensure sliding doesn't happen. You can make the forks fall by gravity with a servo and "snap in" to place if you want.

3. Make sure your hanging mechanism works even if you only have one robot on one side. There are ways to do this.

[bobosalad]

what do people think about carabiners? well big ones! and what are peoples ideas for not getting stuck under the tunnel while trying to raise your robot up?

[MikePres]

Originally Posted by bobosalad

what do people think about carabiners? well big ones! and what are peoples ideas for not getting stuck under the tunnel while trying to raise your robot up?

Carabiners can be useful if your robot can apply enough force to make it stick there (for the spring gate to open, i mean).
If you don't wanna get stuck under the tunnel you can do it strategically by lifting the back of your robot before your front or mechanically by keeping your front bot in a curved shape or a straight one, without bumps to get stuck under there. Yes, i know, "what about the bumpers?!"... make some mechanism that will fall over your bumper to give your bot's front curved or higher than the tunnel.

for example:

#
####
#######
##########
############
##############
################
###>DEVICE ########
##################
##################
##################
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBB>BUMPER BBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB

Consider this with your peers and Mentors... Good luck

[Brandon_L]

did anyone come up with an alternative to the CIM motors for some sort of winch climber? Were allready using all 5.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

did anyone come up with an alternative to the CIM motors for some sort of winch climber? Were allready using all 5.

FPs with a stock gearbox can work.

[Brandon_L]

FPs?

Not familiar. Do you have a pic/spec sheet?

EDIT: Fisher Price?

I found this on it:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...or%20Curve.pdf

Not sure how to read it though though (Im a programmer, leave me alone )

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

FPs?

Not familiar. Do you have a pic/spec sheet?

EDIT: Fisher Price?

I found this on it:
http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...or%20Curve.pdf

Not sure how to read it though though (Im a programmer, leave me alone )

Fisher-Price motors they are. Using the kit gearbox and a decent-sized winch can get a pretty fast but powerful lift.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

did anyone come up with an alternative to the CIM motors for some sort of winch climber? Were allready using all 5.

Might I suggest this?

[JHSmentor]

Originally Posted by TubaMorg

Here is the concept we are implementing to clamp a vertical pole.




Once clamped we will winch the back end of the robot up to the pole.
Initial tests are encouraging, though we will probably have a safety bar that can catch the platform to avoid sliding. Note the same mechanism that winches the robot also engages the clamp, using the robot weight to tighten the grip.

how are you making the clamp engage the tubing? in the picture above, the actual weight of the clamp fingers causes it to initiall close around the cylinder. then as it is hoisted off of the cround the clamp sqeezes tighter - caused by the additional weight of the cyclinder itself. But - gravity is doing the work initially. For the robot, this mechanism would be verticle so you would have to initially get the clamp to squeeze a little around the bar before activating the winch and fully tightening it. I can think of some ways to make this happen - just curious if you have come up with something.

Also, is the plan to attach to one verticle bar or two? I am invisioning a system that would use two but I think aligning them for attachment could be very tricky given the type of clamp. Any thoughts on this?

[John Moloney]

I need help with a question the hook we are building, the hook is build to a pipe thats 84in 1/2 O.D. Now my question is,which is legal? Like 84 inches to the ground or 84 inches from the ground to the pipe?

[bookworm2011]

Has anyone considered using a scissor lift mechanism to hang the robot?

[Suigen Yukiouji]

Originally Posted by bookworm2011

Has anyone considered using a scissor lift mechanism to hang the robot?

We had considered it at first, but then a few of our more experienced mentors brought up the size and weight of the lift, and how it would cause problems with the balance of the robot while crossing humps.

[bobosalad]

Originally Posted by Suigen Yukiouji

We had considered it at first, but then a few of our more experienced mentors brought up the size and weight of the lift, and how it would cause problems with the balance of the robot while crossing humps.

yeah we considered it too but i think we are only going to use the scissor lift to lift the wench hook... just ideas. also what do people know about the cim shifter? is it possible to put a shifter in there without the second gear so it would be in neutral?

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by JHSmentor

how are you making the clamp engage the tubing? in the picture above, the actual weight of the clamp fingers causes it to initiall close around the cylinder. then as it is hoisted off of the cround the clamp sqeezes tighter - caused by the additional weight of the cyclinder itself. But - gravity is doing the work initially. For the robot, this mechanism would be verticle so you would have to initially get the clamp to squeeze a little around the bar before activating the winch and fully tightening it. I can think of some ways to make this happen - just curious if you have come up with something.

Also, is the plan to attach to one verticle bar or two? I am invisioning a system that would use two but I think aligning them for attachment could be very tricky given the type of clamp. Any thoughts on this?

One method we considered was using a lead screw to attach to the pole. We have found, though, that the robot weight is enough to maintain a positive grip. We aren't done enough to drive yet, but we will be using V-type guides to align the gripper. Plus the gripper opens quite wide until engagement.