Lift Designs - Best In Class

[Jon Stratis]

From 2008:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30267

closeups:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35974
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35975

Good video of it in action:
http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2008mn_f1m1

Pay attention to:
0:36 - removing the blue trackball on the far side of the field. You can get a good idea of how long it takes to lower the tower.
1:45 - a great shot of raising the tower to place a trackball. Again, it's all about how long it takes to get it up there.

We were worried about the relatively high CG with this design. To help counter that, there was a 10lb steel plate bolted to the bottom of the robot, and we had the maximum speed of the robot limited once the tower was raised above a certain point. That said, we never tipped over - although there were a few times where everyone in the audience held their breath.

Our team hasn't decided yet on our design for this year, but I can tell you that we're considering two designs - this one (modified to pick up tubes instead of trackballs, of course), and something similar in concept to what team 148 did in 2007 - That was our rookie year, and our pit was right next to them in St. Louis.

If we go with this one, there will be quite a few design modifications: built-in stopping points for each level of the rack, a grabber that can fetch them from the ground, and modified for an appropriate maximum height come to mind... So in the end, we can't just attach our claw from 2007 to our 2008 robot and call it a day!