Moving beyond boxes on wheels.

[jon]

I first wrote a rant about how teams need to be more creative in their robot designs.. but yeah, it seemed pointless, and I already knew the answer to all my questions.

Pretty much, the reason I started this thread, was for one question.

Has there ever been a walking robot in a FIRST competition?

ok... two questions...

What's been the most creative/non-standard locomotion for a FIRST robot?

ok... three...

Why don't we see more of them?

[Cory]

Does Beatty count as a walking robot?

Cory

[Jeff Waegelin]

Originally posted by Cory
Does Beatty count as a walking robot?

Cory

I would say they would count. It definitely was a walker.

[Kevin A]

does a robot that rolls count? as in the whole body/frame goes over itself.

Ours can roll half way over...some people call it flipping...but thats locamotion

[Solace]

Originally posted by jon
I first wrote a rant about how teams need to be more creative in their robot designs.. but yeah, it seemed pointless, and I already knew the answer to all my questions.

Pretty much, the reason I started this thread, was for one question.

Has there ever been a walking robot in a FIRST competition?

ok... two questions...

What's been the most creative/non-standard locomotion for a FIRST robot?

ok... three...

Why don't we see more of them?

the only really imaginative ones that I can recall are 857's kiwi drive from last year, Beatty's from last year, and this year's technocat ball drive.

I think the reason why we don't see more things like this are 1)Simplicty - noncomplicated things tend not to break as easily, 2)money - not all teams are that well endowed to do things like that, and 3)time and effort - have you any idea whatsoever how difficult it would be to design a walking robot? Even if you did go ahead and build one, it would probably take a couple of years of build sessions just to get the design down and prototyped before you even started building it.

[J2Kraatz]

I guess you could call them a walking robot.

[jon]

Originally posted by Solace
I think the reason why we don't see more things like this are 1)Simplicty - noncomplicated things tend not to break as easily, 2)money - not all teams are that well endowed to do things like that, and 3)time and effort - have you any idea whatsoever how difficult it would be to design a walking robot? Even if you did go ahead and build one, it would probably take a couple of years of build sessions just to get the design down and prototyped before you even started building it.

Yeah those were pretty much the answers to the questions in my rant... moreso technical knowledge I think though. And it really wouldn't be that hard/expensive to build a walking robot. It's not like it's a new idea or anything... there are plenty of robots they could base their design off of.

What about a round robots? Segway-bot anyone? Er... flying robot?

[Clark Gilbert]

Would our ball drive count as a "creative/non-standard locomotion for a FIRST robot"?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pi...gle&picid=4243

[ItsPat]

I do have a couple crazy ideas for a walking robot. A bi-ped to be exact.
I'm probally going to spend the summer prototyping it with k-nex, then 2x4's, and once i get it down ill have the team give me a hand with assembling it from 80-20.
Its do-able. Its just hard.

I mean sure, Honda might have spent x million dollars and a decade building their Asimo, but Junkyard wars can build things that work to an acceptable extent in 10 hours. I can settle for something more towards the latter end of the spectrum.

Plus, me, I'm not in FIRST to stack blue bins. Its an engineering competition, as well. Just think about the future applications of your FIRST expirence. Making the same base over and over or even worse, using the same one, isnt a learning expirence.

Thats my opinion anyway. My team did laugh the biped idea off pretty quick, but hey, eventually I wont be the Freshman anymore.....

[Gadget470]

As was stated, team 71's Walker, team 45's ball-drive, and 857's kiwi are 3 excellent ideas that were very interesting and "out of the box."

Other ideas that aren't strap a wheel to a motor (basically) are any system of a swerve drive, be it omni-wheels (which, in and of themselves are a non-conventional method) or swiveling shafts, or swiveling the motor gearbox and wheel all at once, and then there are the parallel drive systems (2 sets of wheels that can be dropped down depending on direction of movement wanted). There are tons of ideas floating around that have yet to be implemented also.

Why don't we more of them?

Time, effort, resources, strategy.

Time: Developing a new or complex idea can put a damper on build season time.
Effort: Someone has to be willing to either build the mechanism(s) and work out the math for an effective system. Non-dedication to a project has been the downfall of many systems.
Resources: Some teams don't have people who think up the fancy ideas that win awards and praise. Some teams have the people, but not the machinary to make it. Some have the people, and machinary, but not the material for a decent enough price.
Strategy: The game for the year often isn't workable with some of the neat ideas on the 'market.' Team 71's walker wouldn't be useful for this years game (as it traveled only in a roughly straight line). 45's ball-drive takes up a lot of space leaving little room for other features (as seen with video of 909). The kiwi-drive is probably just too easy to push off of the HDPE. So there are 3 great ideas that won't be effective for a champion robot this year.
Because of this, teams opted for a fancy way to perform the target. Instead of driving to the center, they'd flail to the center.


Prototypes only go so far. You can build an awesome machine or part of a machine, but if it would be pointless to implement, your machine/part goes unnoticed. I think the teams that build these elaborate items want to be noticed for their accomplishments, and rightfully so. I personally was working on a few prototypes before the game was released and they are now sitting in a pile waiting for possible use next year. I didn't expect HDPE, which reflects my prototypes not being designed to work with it.

Every year there will be at least one really neat idea that really stands out. It doesn't have to be drive-train either, but commonly is. Eventually, FIRST will reach a point where almost everything involved in the bot will be awe-striking to people who hadn't thought of it. Give it time, ideas are on there way.

[ryanspensley]

I think it would awesome if there was a robot that would just be in a big ball that could roll over everthing. Has it ever been done in FIRST?

[Joe Ross]

What about team 276's robot? http://firstrobotics.net/03gallery/pages/0276-1_jpg.htm There are more pictures in the cleveland section of chiefdelphi's image gallery too.

[Scott358]

... do a cartwheel onto the ramp within 2 seconds.

I saw a post back some time ago but haven't heard anything since.

Scott358

[AlbertW]

254 had a walker in their bot... they never used it though.

[Joe Matt]

With the budget the teams have here, you really can't have more than boxes on wheels. Plus, FIRST almost totally rules out any other ways of propulsion (like hamsters.) Levitation, teleportation, and others are still far off for us to use too.