A few teams were asking for a video of our pneumatic jaws working and here they are.
and heres the link to the pictures of the robot as it currently is
The videos are from week 2 and the pics week 3. I would have liked to have our most current version of the robot grabbing the and throwing the ball but were having technical difficulties with it. The jaw has just minor spots where it shifts creating a problem. The jaws are made of steel conduit, and the hinges they are attached to are free spinning (pics only). We need suggestions to fix the hinges the jaws attach to.
As for pneumatics the compressor is on the robot and always running. Grabbing the ball, lifting the arm, and launch expends almost all of our air. Our working psi is set 60 right now.
We were having trouble with air consumption, so we thought about how to set up the cylinders so that they only need air applied on one end, the other end is open and gravity or some other part of the robot pushes it back to starting position.
On the jaw hinge…that looks like a tough problem, and it’s hard to see enough detail of what you have now to help figure out different ways to do it. Maybe some close up pictures would help.
It looks like a good well thought out design but I might suggest bracing the claw that grabs it because I’s hate to see what would happen if you slammed unexpectadly into the overpass of arena wall.
We are using this feature in our succsssful “Six-Shooter” trackball launcher. Only one piston has a return line which pulls the others back along with it. This also greatly increased efficiency as the high side of the other pistons is fully vented in the pre-firing condition.
