Secret #1 Unveiled.

[Anton Abaya]

Well, originally, we were going to do this idea. But due to changing designs, we decided to scrap it. Feel free to steal this wonderful idea. Though I'm sure others might claim they thought about it already, to my knowledge I am the first to post it, so here goes......

Imagine you have a robot who's sitting in your goal zone with a goal or two. Then at the second before the buzzer ends, you decide to release your robot from its driving wheels, falling on spring loaded auxillary wheels. Similar to those matchbox cars that you pull back and moves forward, your robot will now use the power of the spring to propel itself toward it's end zone, well after the clock has buzzed.

The rules say they will wait for the robots to stop moving. The rules dont say anything about springs powering the robot.

I have released this secret because we decided to scrap the idea ourselves in exchange for another idea (also a secret). Though safe to say, I would love to see some teams try this and please, email me if you intend to (I won't tell). I just want to see "my idea" in another robot.

-anton
antonabaya@cyberdude.com
Rambots, #419

[Anton Abaya]

Oh, and as for the potential use of this idea if you still have not realized it, imagine having the ability to not have to run to your end zone like everyone else will, protecting your goals till the last second, yet still being able to get to the end zone!

Comments?

[JVN]

yeah we thought of it
but... we didnt want to share it yet...

[Jim McGeehin]

How would your landing gear work? What if you miss? What if one spring has just a little more oomph than the other, you flip over, and land upside down. Defintely a creative idea, but there's too many "what-ifs."

But if anyone could do that, I would shake their hand, for they are better than I.

[Anton Abaya]

i agree, its not for the faint of heart. We were gonna build it and had a way to do it actually. The only problem is it conflicted with the way we designed our drive train....

btw, another easy way is to disengage your motor output shaft (clutch of some sort) and then let the springs do their thing.

-anton

[AdamT]

We as well thought of it and *cough* might *cough* be doing it. We'll see. I'm sure a lot of teams have though of this because the Q&A yahoo forum has a billion questions reguarding this and entanglement.

there're a lot of ways of doing this. Properly *not breaking entanglement* tethering a psuedo-remote car. Telescoping arms. The list goes on...

One other rule to look out for ... rules on springs. I'm not going to quote it or paraphrase it, but look at it.

[Matt Reiland]

We saw a post about this type of move also in the Yahoo forums when someone asked about the robot coasting, good idea. Our drivetrain wouldn't work well for that arrangement. I wonder if you could also use a flywheel of some sort then a spring return cylinder to engage it to the wheels when you lost your output poswer. Just a thought should be interesting to see

[Anton Abaya]

yeah robot coasting was really the beginnings of the idea.

then i remembered my cheap toys as a kid, those pull back matchbox cars were so much fun.

i think the trick is to give it some momentum, engage several compression springs, and let it coast away!

-anton

[Kris Verdeyen]

We actually ran a few tests with a flywheel powered "daughter ship", but screapped it because it couldn't help us win. The flywheel daughership would be easily blocked by a ball, by a goal, by a bad bounce, or by plain old bad aim. It would be devastaing to watch your match come down to ten points that hit a soccer ball and got hung up after the match was over.

[dixonij]

This idea seems logical on paper but in real life would it work? You would need some really big springs to move a heavy robot to get it coasting enough to make the 30 some feet back to your home zone.

[Anton Abaya]

you underestimate a LOT of compression springs

[AdamT]

But really, why get the whole robot into that zone by coasting when you could have an attachment do it for you while guarding goals. And what stops you from putting something in both zones, making it so both alliances get the extra 10 and if you're winning, then an extra 30 pts? You would HAVE to release both attachments.

Just some food for thought.

[Anton Abaya]

you make a good point, and i cant argue with that.

though i must say, it would look cool if you're the last robot moving ....perhaps 10seconds or more after the clock has buzzzzzed!

-a