Innovative designs

[Po-ser]

Another thing I thought was nice about our 'bot - at the competition at Hartford, I spotted a lot of teams using gravity feed, some using conveyor belts, and a few using pneumatic pumps to get the balls to feed into their shooters. We used a spiral with a set of brushes in the middle that rotated to brush the balls up the ramp. Our shooter mounts at the top of the ramp, and when we want to shoot, there is a fiber glass flap that we attached at the very top that extends beyond the brushes to slap the balls off the ramp and feed them in. There's no way for them to really go anywhere but from the floor into the goal (if all goes as planned, that is).

[Nuttyman54]

This was last year's last minute addition: After noticing our arm motor was running hot, we improvised a heat sink. During testing and after matches the motor was never hotter than room temp.


This year we had to make our own encoder wheels because the shaft was spinning too fast to use a COTS encoder. I don't have any pictures, but it works quite nicely.

[Tim Arnold]

Originally Posted by Matt Gent

Our bot (MARS 1523) uses a surgical-tubing powered catapult/jai-alai cesta launcher. The only truly machined piece on the robot is the catapult hub, everything else is bandsaw/hacksaw/drill press/etc.

Our ball hopper is a basketball net stretched between aluminum tubes.

A picture of our bot (Although I don't personally think it falls in your "ugly" category) can be seen on our gallery here. The ball net worked quite well in the end, virtually no balls bounced back out unlike teams with hard Plexiglass hoppers.

We also used plastic green garden fencing to shield our bot. It was painted black for fear of a DQ, but we have since learned we had nothing to worry about (it was a dark forest green).

Another thing to note is the front wheels are made from glued-together PVC end caps. The rear wheels are homegrown styrofoam and fiberglass with about six layers on them. They were sanded on a lathe and a rubber conveyor belt track was added for traction.

[irishninja]

Ian thats what I was going to say. Plus I think 375 used metal backed cardboard for their spiral hopper. Not ugly, but pretty smart, light, and cheap.

[AcesPease]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

It's not all that ugly, especially when practically your entire robot is fluorescent orange! I lost count on how many cans or Chevrolet Orange spray paint we went through... I think its somewhere around six or seven full cans. The snow/construction fencing is really strong and durable and is amazingly lightweight. Here was team 228's robot during the elimination rounds at UTC:

Looking at the picture I see team 1665's bot. I don't know exactly what they made the spiraling ball ramp with, but it looks like it fits the requirements of this thread.

Also at UTC were the underrated #2 seed, team 716. They used a long piece of cloth for their ball "box" and when they wanted to empty it they pulled it over a bar like a window shade, lifting the bottom and emptying the "box"! The shade was even tie dyed with a question mark like their uniforms, very functional and unique.

I suppose our bot does not qualify for this thread, but we did use ordinary window screening and velcro to make our ball box. And the spiraling hose on our beater bar is 3/4" hose found in any high school chemistry lab.

Bill Pease
Aces High Team 176
2006 UTC New England Champions with 177 and 1124
2006 BAE Granite State Finalists with 319 and 562

[SizzelChest330]

1006 (Fast Eddie) Had a hockey stick on the left and right side of their robot

Inovativeness

[J Flex 188]

I think thats been a tradition of theirs to incorporate some part of a hockey stick somewhere on their robot no matter what the game. I remember in 2003, they had two blades on each side and a low profile robot. Made a for a good pusher and herder

Originally Posted by SizzelChest330

1006 (Fast Eddie) Had a hockey stick on the left and right side of their robot

Inovativeness

[s_forbes]

Another awesome team at Phoenix was 1633, who made their robot with a garbage can, plywood, cardboard, and kit of parts pieces. It worked amazingly well given the materials!

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by s_forbes

Another awesome team at Phoenix was 1633, who made their robot with a garbage can, plywood, cardboard, and kit of parts pieces. It worked amazingly well given the materials!

That is the coolest, the ultimate in function over form And made from just regular every day parts!

[Steph]

Originally Posted by J Flex 188

I think thats been a tradition of theirs to incorporate some part of a hockey stick somewhere on their robot no matter what the game. I remember in 2003, they had two blades on each side and a low profile robot. Made a for a good pusher and herder

Excellent observation Yes, on every robot with the exception of last year's we have used hockey sticks. In 2003 they were used to knock over the boxes, in 2004 they were used to herd balls. This year they have no function, but were dedicated to two of our mentors who were unable to travel with us because of recent surgery. They are signed by our team members.

As for innovative designs, I was impressed by 1897's use of what appeared to be stove pipe, and their mass amounts of zip-ties. It just looked plain cool. (Not to mention was awesome defensively.)

EDIT: I just read the post above mine, it appears others agree Great work guys (and girls)!

[shamuwong]

Another robot that deserves mention is 308. They were an awesome robot at GLR, though I didn't get to see them in-depth. Their robot was made almost entirely of plastic. When I first saw it, it was so clean looking that it looked like a commercial robot, and watching the whole revolver-hopper mechanism and pneumatic catapult (i think) shooter was like a plastic robotic ballet. If you happen to be at the same regional as them, I would definitely reccomend checking that robot out.

As for our robot...well...it has some netting on our expansion that one of the parents picked out. It changes color in different lighting, from gold to green. It looks like a medley of porta-potty contents, but is rather neat anyways.

[TubaMorg]

Everybody thanks for your posts so far. They really make me smile! It's really great to hear the creative ways teams have constructed their robots. I really like the emergency repairs. Keep em coming!

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by shamuwong

Another robot that deserves mention is 308. They were an awesome robot at GLR, though I didn't get to see them in-depth. Their robot was made almost entirely of plastic. When I first saw it, it was so clean looking that it looked like a commercial robot, and watching the whole revolver-hopper mechanism and pneumatic catapult (i think) shooter was like a plastic robotic ballet. If you happen to be at the same regional as them, I would definitely reccomend checking that robot out.

308's robot is probably the most unique robot of the competition this year. Since I work at TRW in Farmington Hills (308's sponsor) and used to be a mentor on that team, I have all of the inside scoop on the design.

The entire hopper/feeder/shooter mechanism is completely mechanically coordinated and timed, much like a watch. It is all driven off of one motor that continuously spins. It drives a Geneva Mechanism that indexes the sorter, then winds the rubber band of the lost-motion catapault. Once the band is wound, the arm flings the ball and the whole thing starts again. They can shoot about 2 balls per second this way. They have a really nice video of it shooting 10 balls in about 5 seconds during the build season. Maybe I can find a way to have them post it somewhere.

[ebarker]

[quote=Chris Hibner]308's robot is probably the most unique robot of the competition this year. Since I work at TRW in Farmington Hills (308's sponsor) and used to be a mentor on that team, I have all of the inside scoop on the design.

You got my curiosity up. I went to their website and could find nothing. Could you get someone to put a picture up there.

Ed

[Dan Richardson]

Heh 1902 we used a laundry hamper for our human loader netting and we used the string from it for our " Spherical Scoring Object Seperation Mechanism " or S.S.O.S.M. It seperated the balls into 2 stacks in our hopper so it can't bind hehe.

Also tools are important to have on the bot, we used a c clamp so the ball must choose a side to come in on when sucking the balls up.

710's roller pin was hillarious to see tho was a great use of house hold items.