Pink sighting at Troy District

[Mike Copioli]

Pink has been sighted at the Troy District Event.

[Cyberphil]

Haha. Looks oddly familiar! Funny thing is, that part on pink's robot was not pink, at least in Florida.

Which robot is this on?

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by Cyberphil

Haha. Looks oddly familiar! Funny thing is, that part on pink's robot was not pink, at least in Florida.

Which robot is this on?

I am pretty sure this is on Thunderchickens' robot.
Mike Cipoli dropped a hint sometime in the last couple days about having pink on their robot.

And I was right!

[Cyberphil]

I see! Well, this technique is very interesting, and I would not be surprised if more teams adopted this idea.

[mrs. p]

We LOVE it!

[R1ffSurf3r]

So first some obviously authentic Thunderchickens are seen with PINK hair, and now this! You northerners have strange taste!

But I do like it

[BJC]

Ha, I watched this get put on. It's a great tribute to a great team.

[Grim Tuesday]

What a genius idea; did 217 come up with it, or did the PINK team?

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

What a genius idea; did 217 come up with it, or did the PINK team?

Pink team
They had some trouble with the minibot going up the pole and staying on the pole in the first few weeks, but I'm sure they figured all that out.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

What a genius idea; did 217 come up with it, or did the PINK team?

I believe that 233 and 190 had the first "ramp" style deployment systems.

217, 1114, and a few other teams have now implemented Ramp style deployments since they seem to shave approximately .2-.3 seconds off of the total climb time, if not more.

(56 also had a ramp style deployment, similar to 190's (used a piece of bent EMT as the "ramp" material) and their first event was DC in week 4, so it's hard to tell if their deployment was developed independently or based on 190's or 233's concept. Also, 56 had a more traditional minibot (Tetrix based) from what I could tell.)

[SamMullen]

I'm obviously missing something here. How does having a ramp on the robot help with deploying the minibot?

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by SamMullen

I'm obviously missing something here. How does having a ramp on the robot help with deploying the minibot?

Let me preface these comments by saying I am a chemistry teacher by profession, and everything I have learned about mechanical engineering has been from my own searching in trying to guide the robotics team that I coach and the wonderful mentors that I get to work with. Hopefully I get this next bit right.

There is a trade off between speed and torque. Usually the minibot needs enough torque to start accelerating vertically from zero. Many teams have smoked a motor watching them stall under this load as they attempt to create faster minibots. The ramp concept allows the robot to accelerate horizontally and then carry some of that momentem into the vertical climb. It should allow for a larger wheel without stalling the motors. These ramp bots are also already at top speed as they cross the 18 inch deployment line while a traditional minibot will still be accelerating.

I got my first glimpse of this system from the Hawaii webcast and team 368. Needless to say, it was impressive.