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Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

artdutra04

By: artdutra04
New: 11-01-2007 18:44
Updated: 11-01-2007 18:44
Views: 1691 times


Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

What do you do when you have a bunch of Vex kits, a lot of students with ideas, and Shrink ray developed during the off-season? Well zap your full size rack down into miniature!

More seriously, here is an exact 1/3 scale version of the rack from this year's game as it appeared right before it was completed. The entire structure was made out of misc. parts available from Home Depot that cost about $55.

The best part of it is that all the spider legs behave almost exactly as they did on the full size FRC version at the Manchester, NH kickoff event. Currently we have two groups of students building several Vex robots with various arm, elevator, and manipulator designs that they came up with.

Although we plan to eventually build half of the full-scale rack as soon as we start getting parts back from the CNC shop, this is a great way to prototype ideas and strategy early on in the build season!

(For more information on this, see my white paper Using Vex in your FRC Team! or Team 40's Mini FRC competition.)

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11-01-2007 19:48

mizscience


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Wow, very cool. Be sure to post pics of the completed VEX robots as well!



11-01-2007 19:53

Schnabel


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

That is so cool!



11-01-2007 19:53

Jeremytice


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Haha thats awsome you guys.....Great Job!



11-01-2007 19:56

Pavan Dave


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

That is awesome. If my life depended on it, I could not make a perfect octagon. Kudos for everybody who can, hehe. Good job on that mini-Rack, and have fun with your VEX robots. Sounds like fun. I should have bought a VEX kit when they were like 100$ when my local radioshack went out of business.

Pavan.



11-01-2007 20:46

1086VEX


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

wow...thats awsome!!!
i want one...
i wish i could go to your comp!!
oh well...great job!!!

~Alex~



11-01-2007 22:41

Rabbit222


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Sweet can I come and play?! Looks very much like the real thing. One question, what are you using as the game piece? Kudos on the great work!!



11-01-2007 22:52

KitKat89


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Aww it's so cute and little. Very nice job, were working on a full size one right now, I can't wait to see it done. ^_^



11-01-2007 22:54

Greg Marra


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

I trust this will be at the UTC Regional?



11-01-2007 23:16

artdutra04


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabbit222 View Post
Sweet can I come and play?! Looks very much like the real thing. One question, what are you using as the game piece? Kudos on the great work!!
We're going to borrow Team 40's Mini FRC idea for a playing field piece, of using pool noodles as the playing field object.


http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/26191

Quote:
Wow, very cool. Be sure to post pics of the completed VEX robots as well!
Hopefully when we are done we'll have a mini playing field that's as "polished" looking as our 1/3 scale Triple Play playing field. (We never really did create an entire 2006 Aim High field, but I do have a 1/3 scale center goal at my house made out of 1/8" Lexan...)

The funny thing is that I still have all those mini tetras, goals, and most of that robot still intact at my house, as they are great PR tools for our team. They are transported easily, easy to set up and explain, and the best thing is letting complete strangers drive the robot and score tetras, as they always love it!







Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Marra
I trust this will be at the UTC Regional?
Quite possibly.



11-01-2007 23:20

MattLi


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Question- How have other teams gone about building the acual size rack?
It's huge and takes a lot of materials. Any suggestions on how to make a cheap and easy rack?



11-01-2007 23:31

Kingofl337


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Awwww. And I thought our 1/3rd scale rack was sweet. Thats awesome! You guys order 4" Cathode Tubes for it? Very nice Art! Very Nice!

Can we borrow that Saturday?



11-01-2007 23:51

KitKat89


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Quote:
Originally Posted by MattLi View Post
Question- How have other teams gone about building the acual size rack?
It's huge and takes a lot of materials. Any suggestions on how to make a cheap and easy rack?
We're using PVC pipe instead of metal. Plus other replacements, so that you get the same general preperties without the huge expense.



12-01-2007 12:12

Elgin Clock


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Very nice Art! I would expect no less than an awesome start to the season from you and the rest of GUS by making this.

Now all we need is some detailed pics and some CAD drawings to recreate this beauty.

Or at least some video of the rack in motion to see how it compares to the real thing.

Kudos to 228 for the mini-rack!



12-01-2007 18:03

skimoose


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingofl337 View Post
Awwww. And I thought our 1/3rd scale rack was sweet. Thats awesome! You guys order 4" Cathode Tubes for it? Very nice Art! Very Nice!
I thought about picking up some 4" Cathodes or I might make an array of green LEDs salvaged from some traffic signals that I picked up at work. Right now we're just working on manipulator designs with the rack. Autonomous will be a little later.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Kingofl337 View Post
Can we borrow that Saturday?
If you don't mind 4 hours of travel to pick it up and bring it back!



12-01-2007 18:16

artdutra04


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Elgin Clock View Post
Now all we need is some detailed pics and some CAD drawings to recreate this beauty.
Elgin, just take the official FRC Rack CAD Drawings from the FIRST Website, divide all the dimensions by 3, and then use the nearest available material size. (Such as for the 2" actual-size spider legs, you can use 3/4" Electrical PVC pipe.)



21-01-2007 18:01

Elgin Clock


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Quote:
Originally Posted by artdutra04 View Post
Elgin, just take the official FRC Rack CAD Drawings from the FIRST Website, divide all the dimensions by 3, and then use the nearest available material size. (Such as for the 2" actual-size spider legs, you can use 3/4" Electrical PVC pipe.)
Ha ha ha works for me. I have to go to the store sometime soon anyways to get some PVC for a side project of mine. (Something a little different than a rack ) Maybe it'll be wise to make one like you did so everyone understands the true nature of the rack before our first competition.

Or maybe after I CAD the whole rack up, I'll just pop the parts in the rapid prototype machine at school. Who knows.



21-01-2007 18:13

Ericgehrken


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

VEX Prototyping I guess.



21-01-2007 18:31

rohit


Unread Re: pic: Honey, I Shrunk The Rack!

Nice! I wish we had enough people (and money) to do that



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