pic: Team 1114 - Simplicity in Design

[Mr MOE]

"Simply" awesome!

Thanks for sharing, Karthik!

[Billfred]

It's documents like this that make even us business majors really appreciate how utterly awesome a mechanism or robot is. (254/968 last year won the prize for their gearbox poster.)

I'll say it: 1114 is serious business.

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by waialua359

That was my guess. You can clearly hear it even on webcast matches when your arm rotated. Must be pretty loud.
By the way, how did you get the 72 tooth sprocket? Go-Kart type? We used an 84 tooth last year and 72 this year and that's the most common question we get about our robot.

It was a custom job, machined out of aluminium on their CNC.

[Vikesrock]

This machine truly embodies "simlpicity on the other side of complexity"

[lasereyes]

As a rookie team, we've noticed that simplicity pwns complexity...

[Jonathan Norris]

As I said earlier in the year before I even saw this bot that it is by far the simplest bot i've seen from 1114. Now that I've had time to look at the details of this bot I've had a couple "why the heck didn't I think of that" moments.

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

when you compare this year's bot to every other bot they have produce it is by far the simplest bot they have ever built, no amazing box stacker, no platform climbing crab drive with hanging arm, no double jointed arm, no tank drive poof ball shooter, and no folding ramp with a 4-bar arm that fit within 4" (or something ridiculous like that). I would say their '06 bot was fairly simple, but when you look at their mechanism this year its what, a single joint with a roller manipulator and a 'punch' kicker (its pretty simple mechanism), I would say their bot is a very simple solution to this year's game. When you compare it to what a lot of the other 'top' teams came out with looks fairly darn simple to me, maybe its just the machining quality that makes it look more complex then it is.

I am still surprised that no one came up with a similar concept, the closest i've really seen is 1625 (and their great bot is still far more complicated). Some bots use similar pick up, but very few teams use the pokie type of launcher that fits so well with this design.

[roboticWanderor]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I am still surprised that no one came up with a similar concept, the closest i've really seen is 1625 (and their great bot is still far more complicated). Some bots use similar pick up, but very few teams use the pokie type of launcher that fits so well with this design.

similar designs were probably thought of by many, unfortunately, they must have thought "i cant figure out how to launch the ball" or "we cant fit that manipulator into the starting position" or other similar considerations. i think the most crucial part to many designs this year was a winch that allowed them to store and release the necessary energy to catapult the trackball. teams that developed this mechanism were able to utilize a simple design such as this.

[Uberbots]

That robot is simply amazing. Its definitely one of those robots that i look at and wonder "how did i not think of that?"

The closest our team came to a shooter was a pair of skis... it launched the ball a fair amount (almost too high- it would hit the ceiling in our practice arena), but was extremely unsafe and lost the ball often (hence why our current bot keeps an iron grip on things).

Id say you guys pulled off the shooter concept wonderfully. You guys get an ÜberStar:

[hillale]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

As I said earlier in the year before I even saw this bot that it is by far the simplest bot i've seen from 1114. Now that I've had time to look at the details of this bot I've had a couple "why the heck didn't I think of that" moments.



I am still surprised that no one came up with a similar concept, the closest i've really seen is 1625 (and their great bot is still far more complicated). Some bots use similar pick up, but very few teams use the pokie type of launcher that fits so well with this design.

I dunno, our shooter is pretty simple if you get a good look at it. Our drive train is much more complicated, being a swerve and whatnot, but our shooter cocking mechanism was inspired by a Lego creation of one of our seniors a few years back (yes, people still play with Legos ). We had JVN down at our pit at the Wisconsin Regional having an infamous "why the heck didn't I think of that" moment in relation to our shooter.

ps: Kudos to 1114 for dominating, btw. Your entire setup is sick.

[ttldomination]

This may seem a little bit late, but could I get a description of how the winch works?

I'm kind of confused about how they pull the bar in?