Team 3807's "Meh" Build Log!

[Thromgord]

Hello, ladies and gents! I'm Thromgord the Warlord, out of team 3807. While our team's robots are often not quite as good as others on this section of Chief Delphi, I nonetheless want to share our progress with all of you out there.

With that in mind, I'm probably going to post about our build so far. Hey, maybe it will offer ideas to some other teams out there! And, at the very least, some may find it funny.

So, here's what has happened so far.

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Over the course of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, our team was simply brainstorming ideas about how the robot should work. We drew a bit of inspiration from the official Robot in Three Days build and its Wonderful Clips of Destiny. Here's a video of the Team Indiana build's clips in action, starting at about 1:15. Look at how those clips can clip! Their potential this year is nearly unlimited, though trusted sources tell me that they won't work with pool noodles. Best of all, they're almost embarrassingly simple.

So, after some thought, our team came up with a 'forklift'-style design using a mechanism quite similar to Team Indiana's. Only, instead of placing the forklift on the inside of the robot's frame, it would extend out front. The robot will compensate for having all of that nasty mass ahead of its C.G. by using two omni-wheels at the end of metal rods. This configuration would also allow for an intake mechanism to be placed at the end of said rods, so that totes could be grabbed quickly and efficiently!

The forklift would be capable of carrying multiple totes at once, as well! Once the first tote is grabbed, the forklift would rise up enough to slide in a second tote under the first, then descend straight down until the Clips of Destiny were firmly planted on the lip of that second tote. This could be repeated ad infinitum, creating a stack inside the robot. We're likely going to have some Plexiglas on the sides of this tower, protecting it from harm. The stack could be dropped off as a unit, just as soon as the forklift had lowered itself down all the way, and the robot could drive off into the Mists of Legend. (But hopefully come back in time for the next match. Robot? Robot, where are you?!)

The forklift itself will be propelled up and down by a clever little idea. Our team discovered that a threaded rod with a motor attached to the bottom of it could be used to raise or lower the forklift. This would be achieved by having the rod spin, almost like a screw or bolt spinning into or out of the wrong bit of wood or C-Channel, again. (C'mon, team!) Only instead of having the threaded rod burrow into wood, it just causes a corresponding bit to smoothly translate up and down. Here's a video of that, working on a smaller scale (the fun stuff begins at 1:10). The only thing needed is something to mitigate the small amount of torque produced by this method; two vertical bars of 80/20 should be plenty enough.

This means that we only really have to have one motor on the robot, aside from the normal chassis motors used to drive the wheels. Yet, this simplicity would still allow us to gather totes reliably and create a big stack!

...and there was much rejoicing.

Two days ago, our team made this video of What Our Robot is Going to Do. It did a bit of a better job of explaining these things than I did, it has some pictures, and besides, Gabe had an absolutely stunning Mewtwo hat on that he made himself, which you might want to see. So here's the video link.

Anyways, let me know what you think! Will our robot work gloriously? Do you have your doubts? Will the robot begin bucking violently and then hit a wall really hard, like it did two years ago? (Funny story, that.)

See you in a couple of days! Happy building!

-Thromgord