Designing a climbing mechanism for 2013... a humbling experience

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by rinim324

Can i get an expert opinion on a design that uses a three stage arm which extends via a pulley system but retracts using a winch powered by a toughbox? The Stages are 27in long with 8in of overlap.

Do you want an opinion on the legality of it? or whether or not such a mechanism could work?

Either way, we'd need a lot more information about the design.

[rinim324]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

Do you want an opinion on the legality of it? or whether or not such a mechanism could work?

Either way, we'd need a lot more information about the design.

Whether or not it would work. We actually revised it a little to have 3 stages and a slider peice on the end with hooks attached to it. The robot is designed to be a corner climber. The arm fully retracted fits inside the robot frame but fully extended can reach 38inches. The Arm is fixed on the frame at 60 degrees (The corner posts are 60 degrees relative to the floor not 68 like the sides). We extend the lift arm with a simple pulley mechanism but retract it with a winch that has the cable hooked to the outermost stage and pulls down at 60 dgrees parallel to the The Arm. We also have a wheel mechanism at the bottom of the robot that rides the vertical post as a third point of contact and it is designed to sort of "walk" over the corners of the horizontal bars. Once the arm is retracted fully two sets of hooks mounted to the frame will latch on to the horizontal bar while the arm extends to the next level.

I hope this is the info you would need.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

So just to keep everyone in the thread updated, Team Update 1-15-2012 has suddenly made climbing a rather lot easier. The 54" cylinder is now robot relative while you're touching the pyramid. Which obviously makes many mechanisms and methods a lot more viable.

My condolences to those of you who have already locked in a more restricted, less robust design based on yesterday's rules.b

In your opinion the rules forced a less robust design. I disagree. We had a nice robust design that even the most conservative members of our team were happy with. Now it's illegal.

[Cal578]

Originally Posted by rinim324

Can i get an expert opinion on a design that uses a three stage arm which extends via a pulley system but retracts using a winch powered by a toughbox? The Stages are 27in long with 8in of overlap.

Originally Posted by rinim324

Whether or not it would work. We actually revised it a little to have 3 stages and a slider peice on the end with hooks attached to it. The robot is designed to be a corner climber. The arm fully retracted fits inside the robot frame but fully extended can reach 38inches. The Arm is fixed on the frame at 60 degrees (The corner posts are 60 degrees relative to the floor not 68 like the sides). We extend the lift arm with a simple pulley mechanism but retract it with a winch that has the cable hooked to the outermost stage and pulls down at 60 dgrees parallel to the The Arm. We also have a wheel mechanism at the bottom of the robot that rides the vertical post as a third point of contact and it is designed to sort of "walk" over the corners of the horizontal bars. Once the arm is retracted fully two sets of hooks mounted to the frame will latch on to the horizontal bar while the arm extends to the next level.

I hope this is the info you would need.

This is an interesting concept, and has similarities to our plan.

By "3 stages" do you mean 3 parts that move, in addition to the fixed end? That is complexity that can be difficult to put into operation. Depending on how you use the pulleys to move the last stage, that could add up to a lot of torque on the first stage. Without seeing a drawing, that would be hard for us to evaluate. But it sounds good, and I hope it works for you.

[IceStorm]

Originally Posted by wireties

Perhaps a heavy lift quad-copter that reaches out and taps each horizontal pipe, dumps 4 blue/red discs and hovers in level 3? ;o)

Might have a big issue with bumper rules during the rest of the match though. That is unless you can hover really low to the ground.

Not to mention you better latch on before the timer reaches 0 and they disable all the motors.

Though I would seriously love to see a robot try this.

[wireties]

Originally Posted by IceStorm

Might have a big issue with bumper rules during the rest of the match though. That is unless you can hover really low to the ground.

Not to mention you better latch on before the timer reaches 0 and they disable all the motors.

Though I would seriously love to see a robot try this.

Those darn bumpers always mess up the design! Perhaps we can just have bumpers that stay on the ground after lift-off. And you are correct, we need a clamp for the EOG power loss.

I was kidding of course (about the quad copter) ... our climber goes up the corner (we hope) using 2 CIMS configured something like a cog train. And the design effort is humbling, especially for a EE!

[Justin Shelley]

Our team has developed a way to score 18 in auto. Up to 42 in teleop. Climb to 30. Dump 20 in top goal. It is important to remember that you can not score in the pyramid during auto. Also you can only posses 4 disc, ever. That includes when climbing and dumping!!! I predict that at championships we will see 200-300 point matches. I also predict our robot will score 110 at best and rarely bellow 68.

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by Justin Shelley

Our team has developed a way to score 18 in auto. Up to 42 in teleop. Climb to 30. Dump 20 in top goal. It is important to remember that you can not score in the pyramid during auto. Also you can only posses 4 disc, ever. That includes when climbing and dumping!!! I predict that at championships we will see 200-300 point matches. I also predict our robot will score 110 at best and never bellow 68.

I love your confidence. Keep in mind this is a very dynamic and complex game. To say that your robot will never score below 68 points is quite a statement. Be careful where you set your goals and expectations.

Good luck

Justin

[45Auto]

I also predict our robot will score 110 at best and never bellow 68.

Wow! Someone is in for a RUDE awakening!

[Justin Shelley]

Originally Posted by 45Auto

Wow! Someone is in for a RUDE awakening!

what seems so crazy about this? I understand 110 is pretty far fetched, not impossible, but 68 i believe will be common at championships.

[45Auto]

I guess we'll see in a couple of months!

[nicholsjj]

Originally Posted by Justin Shelley

Our team has developed a way to score 18 in auto. Up to 42 in teleop. Climb to 30. Dump 20 in top goal. It is important to remember that you can not score in the pyramid during auto. Also you can only posses 4 disc, ever. That includes when climbing and dumping!!! I predict that at championships we will see 200-300 point matches. I also predict our robot will score 110 at best and rarely bellow 68.

What Justin is saying is that we think we can successfully climb while also being able to shoot in autonomous. The 20 pt. dump is in the early stages of prototyping. I'm really excited by the team's enthusiasm this year, but realistically I am having many sleepless nights due to the vision of Thunderbolt falling from the pyramid.

I will say that this is probably the most difficult game element that I have ever heard of in FIRST (well beating 71 in Zone Zeal isn't quite a game element). I also realize that our team has developed a design that I believe will climb well. We were able to keep our shooter on Thunderbolt, but at the cost of giving up floor pick up. I would like to wish every team a successful Season in 2013, and hopefully Team 3885 can compete in St. Lou twice this year. (with a little luck)

[rocknthehawk]

I've been hitting my head against a wall trying to solve this. The pyramid is one of the most difficult elements I've tried to solve in my ten years. The size constraints, combined with the zone rules, make it extremely challenging.

Our students decided a third level climb was highest priority. I was concerned about the 2010 bot; Too much focus on the endgame, to the point we could barely score in teleop. We've had a few different concepts, with way more development than I anticipated.

With that said, we finally got our climber working. We did a proof of concept to climb to the second and touch the top bar, just need to finish our mechanism and it will be fully functioning and scoring on the 30 point bar by the weekend.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Justin Shelley

Our team has developed a way to score 18 in auto. Up to 42 in teleop. Climb to 30. Dump 20 in top goal.

Pics & Videos or it doesn't exist.

[mikegrundvig]

Our climber design has been plagued by complexities in supporting it as well as clearance problems getting it to grab bars but not touch the box on the top of the pyramid as well as having enough room to support minor alignment issues.

-Mike