pic: Team 395 - The Spicey!

[Waynep]

Originally Posted by Alekat

Do you consider the wire hanging out the side of your arm a problem? We were a little scared with all the arms flying they might get snagged on our big loop of precious tubing and wire.

We do consider the wire loops hanging from the side to be a problem. Tips for you:
1. Try and keep the loops as small as possible with multiple tiedowns. When the crane is fully extended, the cable is pulled almost perfectly straight along the robot. Latex tubing is a simple way to keep the cables as close to your robots arm/crane.
2. We use split loom tubing to help protect the wire in the event of contact, but this still does not prevent entanglement.
3. You can also look into cable and hose carrier, http://www.kabelschlepp.com/ for example. To provide a neat way of managing your cables.
4. And perhaps most important of all is that if you have to have wires exposed, your drive crew needs to be aware of incoming robot arms and maneuver your arm/robot to protect your wires.

Hope this helps. Gene, Joe, thanks for the comments. Sparky and Metal in Motion produced some pretty impressive robots this year. I'll be looking forward to seeing the two of you at Nats. Good luck to all of you at Regionals.
Best,
Wayne