pic: 1114 hanging around

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I got a pretty good look at their hanging mechanism at Pittsburgh, works with the front arm that latches on to the bar with some high traction rubber on the bottom of it to grip onto the bar. They pull them selves up using a winch system that uses their 4 drive CIMs, it engages using a dog gear. Its really fast, they can get all the way up in less then 3 seconds. The top tail grabs onto the bar at the end of their climb to hold themselves up.

They use a pneumatic cylinder to deploy the gripper.

1114 was prone to slipping down the bar earlier in the competition (Friday practice, I believe), making the hang not count - the tail slamming into the bar at the end of the hang was identified as the culprit. Softening the blow of that impact helped, but it still slips a wee bit every so often - just not enough to invalidate the hang. Something tells me they'll find a way to get rid of that altogether soon enough.