anyone use an arm to help balance

FIRST General Forum
#1

Posted by Joel G at 03/25/2001 3:39 PM EST

Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High School and NASA/ BOEING/ MEVATEC.

Hello, I’m a new user on chiefdelphi.com, I’m from team 442(Knight Riders). Anyways now that were past introducing myself, my question is does any other team out there use an arm to help balance. Our team seeded 3rd at the Lone Star Regional and thanks to our “outrigger” ( 4 bar link arm) we balanced pretty consistly , I haven’t seen another robot use such a device and I wanted to see if anyone else uses one.
Thanks
Joel
P.S.
check out our site sometime too. www.lhsrobotics.com , by the way I love how they set up chiefdelphi.com

#2

Posted by Joe Ross at 03/25/2001 3:58 PM EST

Engineer on team #330, Beach Bot, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL , J&F Machine, and Raytheon.

In Reply to: anyone use an arm to help balance
Posted by Joel G on 03/25/2001 3:39 PM EST:

Team 192 uses 2 arms to help them balance. They came in 2nd at the socal regional and 3rd at the silcon valley regional doing this. See the picture below

#3

Posted by Joel G at 03/25/2001 4:16 PM EST

Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High School and NASA/ BOEING/ MEVATEC.

In Reply to: GRT (192) does
Posted by Joe Ross on 03/25/2001 3:58 PM EST:

: Team 192 uses 2 arms to help them balance. They came in 2nd at the socal regional and 3rd at the silcon valley regional doing this. See the picture below
THanks for the info. Our arm works a little different, but it seems yours is just as effective, if you wanna see a pic our bot its on the chiefdelphi site somewhere I think its in the Lone Star Regional pics team 442.

#4

Posted by Karl at 03/25/2001 4:21 PM EST

Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High and NASA Marshall SpaceFlight Center.

In Reply to: anyone use an arm to help balance
Posted by Joel G on 03/25/2001 3:39 PM EST:

I have VHS of GRT balancing with their arms if you were really interested in seeing it you could borrow it some time.

#5

Posted by Joel G at 03/25/2001 4:26 PM EST

Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High School and NASA/ BOEING/ MEVATEC.

In Reply to: Hey, Joly-Poly, read this!
Posted by Karl on 03/25/2001 4:21 PM EST:

: I have VHS of GRT balancing with their arms if you were really interested in seeing it you could borrow it some time.

KARL WHAT IS YOU AOL IM : EMAIL ME AT LHSROBOTICS2001@hotmail.com , by the way my NAME IS JOEL

#6

Posted by Joel G at 03/25/2001 4:26 PM EST

Student on team #442, Knight Riders, from Lee High School and NASA/ BOEING/ MEVATEC.

In Reply to: Hey, Joly-Poly, read this!
Posted by Karl on 03/25/2001 4:21 PM EST:

: I have VHS of GRT balancing with their arms if you were really interested in seeing it you could borrow it some time.

KARL WHAT IS YOU AOL IM : EMAIL ME AT LHSROBOTICS2001@hotmail.com ,

#7

Posted by Ben at 03/25/2001 5:02 PM EST

Student on team #365, Miracle Workerz, from Avon Grove High School and Dupont Engineering / Engineering Explorer Post.

In Reply to: anyone use an arm to help balance
Posted by Joel G on 03/25/2001 3:39 PM EST:

We (team 365) use actually 2 arm like devices, first
our ‘wings’ extend out to stop us in the center of
the ramp kicking it over. Also, as an added benifit,
our second arm can move to adjust our cg.

#8

Posted by Ken Leung at 03/26/2001 1:09 AM EST

Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.

In Reply to: anyone use an arm to help balance
Posted by Joel G on 03/25/2001 3:39 PM EST:

I always wonder, after watching all the regionals, if the bridge is doing what it’s intended to do when FIRST first came up with that idea…

When I first saw the bridge in kickoff, I thought, “Uh oh, it’s going to be tough balancing…” The swinging motion seemed so smooth that I thought it was on a pivot point. I thought it’s going to take some serious thoughts to get the goals multipliers…

However, the regionals proved me wrong. A lot of time I saw a robot balanced only by moving back and forth counteracting the bridge’s movements. I am starting to wonder if arms like ours are really worth developing.

Just last two regional, the winner of both competition was balanced because of a great driver. In other cases, robots balanced the bridge by one side being 1" off the ground…

Did FIRST really intended this bridge to be this easy to be balanced? I always thought that this bridge was intended to have some “fancy” components from robots to get balanced.

I am not saying no one did that. I can think of lots of robots that have components to balance. Devices like our arms and team 442’s, long arms that pushes goals to a balanced position… And I guess arms like those on the Beatty machine or Metal in motion have an advantage of not balancing on the bridge…

It’s just that drive train seems to be a too easy of an option. In every year of competition, every robot has to develop a good drive train anyway…

So I don’t know. Is the bridge too easy of a challenge? When I say easy, I mean it in the context that the nature of the drive train is already a solution long before the problem was stated. It is as if some thinking was already done before the competition started…

Do you think FIRST expected teams to solve that problem like this?

#9

Posted by Jake at 03/26/2001 9:50 AM EST

Student on team #365, Miracle Workerz, from Avon Grove High School and DuPont Engineering.

In Reply to: intendion of the bridge…
Posted by Ken Leung on 03/26/2001 1:09 AM EST:

I feel that the bridge is a good contendor in a match. It often times is the difference between a 2.5x multiplyer and a 2x multiplyer. In the Philadelphia Alliance Reagional, we (Team 365) were able to balance 2 goals, 2 big balls, and 11 small balls in 55 seconds because of a balancing ‘wing’. In the first elimination round (1st seeded alliance vs 4th seeded alliance), the Tigertrons (Team 222) were in position with their 2 goals, 2 big balls, and 11 small balls within 53 seconds, but could not ballance for another 15 - 20 seconds, causing them to miss the 2.5x multiplyer.

So, I believe the bridge is doing what it is supposed to be doing: making it hard to get ballancing multiplyers. It may be easy for the older teams to balance with only their drive trains, but that could only be because of driver skill and not back-driving the motors after power is cut. Rookie teams have difficulty balancing because this is often their first time controlling their robot from 24ft away (to the bridge) with the crowd shouting, music blaring, and pressure on. The bridge was a great addition to the game, but I’d still like to see the head-to-head competition like last year. That would be interesting on a bridge.

~ Captain Jake
The Miracle Workerz
Team 365
Go Li’l M.O.E.!

#10