OK being the end of the 2nd week my team still has no design for the robot some are saying elevator and some are saying just the arm and the last third are saying both.
But i brought up a good question on rule R11
about not breaking the 84’ diameter mark now is that from the middle of the robot or is that from the bumpers because I measured it out and from the center it only gives us about 1.5 feet. Now am I wrong and is it from the bumpers?
Thanks to all people who help
and is any one actually going to use an elevator? (because i know every one is going to use an arm)
Second, Look in the complete manual OR the section 4 Robot descriptions. Use the search function of Acrobat to find <R11> or just scroll down a bit until you get there.
Third, Read for a while.
Fourth, come back here if you’re still having problems understanding the rules as they are written.
Fifth, read the rest of the document, fortified with whatever beverage(s) will lubricate the process. In N.E. the choice is hot chocolate - don’t spill any on the keyboard! I’ve heard good things about the Dew too.
Oh, and I can totally sympathize with your team’s design difficulties. It even has a name- Paralysis by Analysis. Coming into contact with it firsthand is a valuable experience for your team members. Even if all your team does is build each of their ideas and they only get as far as the practice fields, they can still have fun, be inspired, and learn a thing or five about engineering.
The trickiest thing about that 84" cylinder is that it can shift around as the parts of the robot change their positions. For instance, if your manipulator arm moves to one side and reaches the limiting distance, it could move the same distance to the other side of the robot. The distance between the two points reached can be farther apart than the magical 84" distance because the cylinder limit retreated from the first point as soon as the manipulator moved.
If you want to talk geometrically, consider the projection of your robot, manipulators extended, onto the plane of the playing surface. After doing so, a circle of diameter 84" must be able to contain all the projected lines with none of them crossing its circumference.
You aren’t still reading the original version of the rules, are you? There have been 5 revisions already - labelled Rev-A, B, C, D, E - and another may come out today.