179 Swamp Teasers

[jason701802]

That's a very interesting design. How much do you expect the final product to weigh (including battery and bumpers)?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Will you be able to legally use the ramp to aid in the coopertition bonus?

[G27] Deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent Robot on or inside its Frame Perimeter is not allowed.

Even though the robot is designed to be climbed, I don't think there's a way around the "deliberate" wording there. Unless there's a rule change, it seems to me that you would only be able to ramp up allied robots.

Still very useful for your alliance bridge, but maybe not as helpful as I'd originally hoped for getting the coopertition bonus in qualifications.

We're working on a somewhat similar design, so I pinged the Q&A with a question about that. The answer was that G27 is in force no matter what, even if you want another robot on you for coopertition purposes.

Also, hats off to 179 for that impressively bold and integrated design. We're planning on a parking platform on our robot and using the bridge as a ramp onto our bot. Our main argument in favor of it was that it'd be valuable in the elims, and it only cost us weight for a parking surface and slightly beefier wedge. We weren't nearly confident enough in the value to build our entire bot around it.

[Brandon Holley]

This is totally a Swamp robot. It simply just fits you guys so well.

Kudos on a great design. I still wouldn't have posted it this early on...

-Brando

[AlexH]

Wow I wish I thought of that...

But I have to ask... Is the ramp on the robot in violation of the "no wedges rule"?

[Jonathan Ryan]

Please repost pictures! Sounds great, but would love to see what everybody is raving about.

[Andrew Zeller]

Originally Posted by AlexH

Wow I wish I thought of that...

But I have to ask... Is the ramp on the robot in violation of the "no wedges rule"?

What do you mean by the "no wedges rule" ?

[RogerR]

Dan,

Hats off to you and the rest of 179. We have a plywood version of this robot (minus the clever CG management hangin trick) sitting in the closet that we abandoned due to ground clearence worries. I'm looking forward to seeing this compete. Robots like this make me miss the UCF regional.

To prototype the concept, did you just park the 2003 machine in front of the bridge and run robots into it?

[EricS-Team180]

This is the kind of innovation I have come to expect from our friends in West Palm Beach. Inspiring as usual Dan...kudos

Eric

[jblay]

I love seeing cool out of the box ideas. I'm very interested to see what kind of effect you guys have in qualification matches and how much you jump on people's list because of the 3 robot balance for eliminations. Say you are a middle of the range scorer, how much higher do you go on someones list because of the 3 robot balance ability considering you haven't been able to demonstrate it in the qualification matches? Maybe you guys will try and demonstrate this ability during the practice matches?

I just have 2 concerns about the design that I'm sure you guys have considered but I do feel like I should bring up.
-Is the ramp 14 inches out when it sits on the ground or when it is at it's full extension? We have made a similar mistake in the past and it forced us to do a very big redesign.
-Is the part where your C shaped channel encounters the bridge the same on the practice bridge as on the bridge on the actual competition field? My worry is more about the bottom of the bridge than the top. A subtle difference could change everything.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Could be covered in traction material or something... that's an easy rule to work with.

Definitely. As pointed out, it doesn't apply to the parts touching the Bridge, but they will want to put a rubber coating (or something) on the parts that touch the carpet when the ramp is down. This is because the ramp, touching the carpet, will provide a repulsive force (friction) when robots attempt to climb the ramp.

[Gary Dillard]

I love the vice grips visible in the side view - will those make it to the final design?

[stundt1]

The problem I see as soon as a robot goes on the other side the 179 robot will go off balance and maybe tip.

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by jblay;

just have 2 concerns about the design that I'm sure you guys have considered but I do feel like I should bring up.
-Is the ramp 14 inches out when it sits on the ground or when it is at it's full extension? We have made a similar mistake in the past and it forced us to do a very big redesign.
-Is the part where your C shaped channel encounters the bridge the same on the practice bridge as on the bridge on the actual competition field? My worry is more about the bottom of the bridge than the top. A subtle difference could change everything.

Take a look-see:

The Bridges video of the FIRST Youtube channel

[LeelandS]

A very interesting design. I'm a little skeptical, but that's just because I can't see a method of ball manipulation (YET).

Now what happens if no one is on the other side of the bridge?

Otherwise, a very unique design that I don't expect to be replicated very much during the season. Though I do expect another innovative team to come up with this somewhere

Also, when the ramp comes up during lifting, does it act as a wall your alliance partners can lean on to make sure they're well aligned? If not, AND I ASSUME IT IS NOT, you may want to make sure you clarify that, since it looks like if someone pushes on that too much, your robot will fall a bit and unbalance the bridge.

Kudos for the robot! Can't wait to see it in action!

-Leeland

[dellagd]

Originally Posted by boarder3512

What do you mean by the "no wedges rule" ?

Well I believe he is referring to this:

[G26] Strategies aimed at the destruction, attachment, damage, tipping or entanglement of Robots are not in the spirit of the FRC and are not allowed. Violation: Technical-Foul plus Yellow Card

For example, use of wedge-like mechanisms to flip Robots would be considered a violation.

But this is obviously not the case





Oh, and this is wayyy of topic but did anyone else know that there was a dead horse emoticon on chief delphi?

It is a bit graphic

How'd that get there