pic: Team 38

[Jaine Perotti]

Originally Posted by Katy

The lampshade is a very nice design. I do wonder though, why did you choose that design? It appears to be complex (therefore more easily broken), heavy, and resources intensive compared to other designs. Is there anything special it does that makes it worth these things?

I saw this robot in person at the UTC scrimmage, and it worked well. The "lampshade", I believe, is used to align the tetra properly for the grabbing mechanism. While it looks somewhat complex in the picture, it actually requires only a simple in/out linear motion, and can be accomplished relatively efficiently. While it is more complex than say, a simple hook with no actuator, it does the job well. When I saw it, it didn't look particularly heavy either. The obvious advantage to it is that once it grabs a tetra, no one is going to get it off and it is well controlled.

Nice job Nonnebots!

-- Jaine