Catapulting minibot

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by chris janney

im pretty sure the reason we cant catapult the minibot is becuase of people like me. my first thought was to strap a small rocket engine on the thing and forget about it. right now im shooting (no pun intended) for building a scaled down air cannon and turning it upside down so the air jetisons the bot into space.

Good luck finding a small air cannon in the FTC kit of parts

[chris janney]

use the pvc pipe to make a barrel and a holding tank. the stuff can take a lot of pressure, so as long as you charged it on the host bot it will be fine. besides my team doesnt feel like putting a hole in the roof of the shop we are using, so it probably wont happen.

[Chris is me]

PVC air tanks are prohibited as they are not pneumatic components.

All of you are going about wrong. Store the energy in the minibot...

[ecogirl5595]

i was considering something similar, but was worried about the possibility of not having enough force to reach the 2-4 N needed to activate the sensor- so.. maybe a combination of a self powered bot and a boost from host?

[kerrigan93]

Originally Posted by Mike Ounsworth

I'm fairly confident that any free-flying mini-bots will be deemed a safety hazard.

<G26> If at any time a ROBOT'S operation or design is deemed unsafe, the ROBOT will be disabled for the remainder of the MATCH. If the safety violation is due to the ROBOT design, the Head Referee has the option to not allow the ROBOT back onto the FIELD until the design has been corrected. Violation: PENALTY and Disablement

[Timebomb]

What I was wondering was what constituted a robot, and what the minimum definition of a mini-bot was, because if it is just any extension to the robot that can latch onto the pole and/or detach from the robot, then I could just build a little box that houses a lot of pre-tensioned surgical tubing, clipped to the pole with a carabiner or something similar, positioned so that when it detached to released all of the Potential Energy at once, launching the cube upwards at a very high velocity, I could even add a foam layer so that it wouldn't hurt the field. I honestly cant think of a faster way to get from point A to B. and input on the legality of it or the minimum requirements of a mini-bot (i.e. a brain, batteries, motors, ect.) would be greatly appreciated.

[Randy Picolet]

input on the legality of it or the minimum requirements of a mini-bot (i.e. a brain, batteries, motors, ect.) would be greatly appreciated.

"MINIBOT – an autonomous vehicle designed and built to perform specific tasks when competing in the 2011 competition LogoMotion. The MINIBOT must obviously follow a design approach intended to play the 2011 FRC END GAME and must be compliant with all MINIBOT rules defined in Section 3.4.14. [sic s/b 4.3.14]"

An "autonomous vehicle", not a projectile/wind-up toy. Build a TETRIX robot, or don't bother... My take

Also I and others said in other threads, the autonomous requirement kicks in as soon as the minibot is deployed (positioned) on the tower/pole. And, its a climbing race. The Host cannot impart momentum without violating autonomy or the definition of climbing.

[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by Randy Picolet

"MINIBOT – an autonomous vehicle designed and built to perform specific tasks when competing in the 2011 competition LogoMotion. The MINIBOT must obviously follow a design approach intended to play the 2011 FRC END GAME and must be compliant with all MINIBOT rules defined in Section 3.4.14. [sic s/b 4.3.14]"

An "autonomous vehicle", not a projectile/wind-up toy. Build a TETRIX robot, or don't bother... My take

Also I and others said in other threads, the autonomous requirement kicks in as soon as the minibot is deployed (positioned) on the tower/pole. And, its a climbing race. The Host cannot impart momentum without violating autonomy or the definition of climbing.

I still think a small block designed to sling upwards would fit the definition of a MINIBOT. No where in the manual does it state that the MINIBOT must contain electronics, or motors.

And what if our "deployment" is not finished until AFTER we release our surgical tubing/spring?

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Randy Picolet

"MINIBOT – an autonomous vehicle designed and built to perform specific tasks when competing in the 2011 competition LogoMotion. The MINIBOT must obviously follow a design approach intended to play the 2011 FRC END GAME and must be compliant with all MINIBOT rules defined in Section 3.4.14. [sic s/b 4.3.14]"

An "autonomous vehicle", not a projectile/wind-up toy. Build a TETRIX robot, or don't bother... My take

Also I and others said in other threads, the autonomous requirement kicks in as soon as the minibot is deployed (positioned) on the tower/pole. And, its a climbing race. The Host cannot impart momentum without violating autonomy or the definition of climbing.

I completely disagree. Autonomous simply means acting independently. It never says intelligently. Who's to say we even need to use the brick. I saw a team, while judging at the state FLL competition this year, who had their robot hit a lever for a large box. The robot never left the base for this program. Within this box was a spring loaded mechanical arm that placed the bone bridge (I think that's what it was called) exactly in the right location every time. Why build a complicated minibot with an FTC kit instead of just a box that fires itself off.

[Randy Picolet]

Originally Posted by nighterfighter

I still think a small block designed to sling upwards would fit the definition of a MINIBOT. No where in the manual does it state that the MINIBOT must contain electronics, or motors.

And what if our "deployment" is not finished until AFTER we release our surgical tubing/spring?

"DEPLOYMENT – the act of positioning a MINIBOT on a TOWER. DEPLOYMENT starts when the MINIBOT breaks the vertical projection of the TOWER BASE circumference during the END GAME. (Related form, DEPLOY, verb)"

Positioning means locating at a point, not applying force. Once you haver positioned the minibot, it must be autonomous (fully self-controlled) Climbing implies continuous non-sliding contact, as opposed to jumping. sliding. slinging, or flying using a pole as a trajectory constraint/guide.

You probably can use elastic energy stored on the minibot (assuming it passes safety inspection) but I think you will still not be able to just slide along the pole; you need traction of some sort to qualify as climbing IMHO.

[Randy Picolet]

Originally Posted by ICanCountTo19

I completely disagree. Autonomous simply means acting independently. It never says intelligently. Who's to say we even need to use the brick. I saw a team, while judging at the state FLL competition this year, who had their robot hit a lever for a large box. The robot never left the base for this program. Within this box was a spring loaded mechanical arm that placed the bone bridge (I think that's what it was called) exactly in the right location every time. Why build a complicated minibot with an FTC kit instead of just a box that fires itself off.

I love a good techie debate

Not sure I said "intelligently" anywhere. And I believe it would still be a legal minibot without a brick/brain. I just don't think you will get very far without one if you think about the whole problem (e.g. intentionally free-falling back down after you hit the target is probably gonna get you a flag). And if the mini touches the host after it climbs above the deployment line, that would violate <G22>, so you'd have to pull the host out of the way, which means the minibot would slam into the base. Autonomous means "self-control", not "no control"

[kornjones]

Originally Posted by Randy Picolet

"DEPLOYMENT – the act of positioning a MINIBOT on a TOWER. DEPLOYMENT starts when the MINIBOT breaks the vertical projection of the TOWER BASE circumference during the END GAME. (Related form, DEPLOY, verb)"

Positioning means locating at a point, not applying force. Once you haver positioned the minibot, it must be autonomous (fully self-controlled) Climbing implies continuous non-sliding contact, as opposed to jumping. sliding. slinging, or flying using a pole as a trajectory constraint/guide.

You probably can use elastic energy stored on the minibot (assuming it passes safety inspection) but I think you will still not be able to just slide along the pole; you need traction of some sort to qualify as climbing IMHO.

the way i read this was that according to this rule:
<G19> After DEPLOYMENT, MINIBOTS must remain completely autonomous.
the minibots only have to be autonomous (in my opinion means not being acted upon by other objects such as the hostbot) AFTER deployment. the definition for deployment only definitively states when it starts.
therefore with some more nitpicking of the rules (this is how loop bot, i believe it was team 469, dominated most of last years competition) i came across this rule
<G22> HOSTBOTS may not contact their ALLIANCE’S MINIBOT once it has climbed above the DEPLOYMENT LINE.
these two rules and the shabby definition of deployment lead me to believe that until it gets stated otherwise, one can "shoot" the minibot off of the host bot in endgame
and also i don't see how climbing implies continuous non-sliding contact.
tl;dr i read you can "shoot" minibots up the pole in endgame

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Randy Picolet

(e.g. intentionally free-falling back down after you hit the target is probably gonna get you a flag).

No part of the rules says this at all.

[kornjones]

and all you need to do in order to pad your landing would be to line the bottom of your robot with surgical tubing. and ya there is no rule against that^^^

[RandAlThor]

Even if you need to have non-sliding contact, you can just put a wheel on the robot so that it might touch the pole on the way up.

But has anyone done the projectile motion calculations to figure out how hard we have to propel an object upwards in order for it to exert 2-4 newtons at the top?