Rack 'n' Roll Manipulators

[Mr_I]

Back in '07, nine rings of each color started on the floor (stood up against the Alliance Wall), and tubes could be passed into the field via vertical slots.
However, my guess is that this year like '07, LOTS of tubes will be hurled over the Alliance Wall.

[TD912]

Originally Posted by Mr_I

Back in '07, nine rings of each color started on the floor (stood up against the Alliance Wall), and tubes could be passed into the field via vertical slots.
However, my guess is that this year like '07, LOTS of tubes will be hurled over the Alliance Wall.

This year there's an opening in the Alliance Wall (the Feeder Slot) where you hand off tubes to the robots. Of course, if you drop a piece you will need a way for the robot to pick it off of the field.

[Mr_I]

Originally Posted by TD912

This year there's an opening in the Alliance Wall (the Feeder Slot) where you hand off tubes to the robots. Of course, if you drop a piece you will need a way for the robot to pick it off of the field.

Yes, I know there's a slot; there was a slot in '07 as well (vertical compared to this year's horizontal). However, the slot is at the end of the lanes, which quite frankly are a long way to go to get a single game piece. IMHO, lots of pieces may be thrown over walls to speed up the process, even though it will admittedly risk your opponent getting the piece you threw in.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by TD912

This year there's an opening in the Alliance Wall (the Feeder Slot) where you hand off tubes to the robots. Of course, if you drop a piece you will need a way for the robot to pick it off of the field.

Originally Posted by Mr_I

Back in '07, nine rings of each color started on the floor (stood up against the Alliance Wall), and tubes could be passed into the field via vertical slots.
However, my guess is that this year like '07, LOTS of tubes will be hurled over the Alliance Wall.

Both of these points are valid. When my team goes to pick a human player, I'll definitely recommend lining people up, putting a 8ish feet wall in front of them, and then seeing how far they can chuck it. Why have your robot make the 50ish feet trip if it doesn't have to.

- Sunny

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

Both of these points are valid. When my team goes to pick a human player, I'll definitely recommend lining people up, putting a 8ish feet wall in front of them, and then seeing how far they can chuck it. Why have your robot make the 50ish feet trip if it doesn't have to.

- Sunny

On the other hand, why take the risk of an opponent robot stealing one of your rings when you dont have to.

[AcesJames]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

In 2007 the Rack posts had a 9" diameter disk on the end; with tubes having a 10" ID, many teams decided that a manipulator that gripped the inner diameter of the tube would interfere with placing tubes on the rack. Thus we saw a lot of teams with grippers, and not as many with inner-diameter-grabbers.

Nice photo, thanks. I see what the upper elbow joint is made of, but can you describe the lower elbow joint for me?

The lengths of the arm are made of the KOP C-Channel rail, and the joints are made of CNC'd aluminum plates that hold both the C-Channel together, and the motors that power the joints.

Our elbow had a yaw powered by 2 motors, so the whole arm could move side to side. It also had 2 Window motors in parallel to raise and lower the arm. At the wrist, we used 2 more Window motors in parallel to raise and lower the grabber, which was actuated with a pneumatic cylinder.

More detailed pictures:
http://aceshigh176.org/gallery2/main...serialNumber=2
http://aceshigh176.org/gallery2/main...serialNumber=1
http://aceshigh176.org/gallery2/main...serialNumber=2

The whole arm assembly has 6 motors if I remember correctly. It was a little overdone I think.

[Robert103]

Its also important to consider that there aren't only circle tubes this year. I would think a mechanism that picked pieces up from the center (which is relatively uniform) would be easier than trying to accommodate the different shapes.

[TerryS]

A big mahalo to all of you for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

Originally Posted by Trent B

This is worth a perusing as well if you can find a copy at a library or find someone who you can borrow it from.
http://www.amazon.com/FIRST-Robots-R.../dp/1592534112

There's a lot of great info in this book. A couple of the designs (Teams 1987 and 386) used vacuums to pick up the tubes. Does anyone recall how well these worked? I would think that if they got bumped hard that they would drop the tube.

Originally Posted by BIGWILLI2081

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ight=best+tube
check out these threads for information.

Wow...lots of good designs mentioned here. Going to take me a while to look up all of these.