Every year a team from Hammond, Indiana finds a way to build a BEAST of a robot (pun intended). We have all seen three weeks of competition, yet no sign of Team 71. So, I thought it would be fun to guess as to what robot they will be building this year.
Here are my thoughts-
First possibility:
They build a machine that does the usual - everything! They will have a funnel on a arm, much like TechnoKats’ (Team 45’s) design. They will be able to feed their human player quickly, then grab a big ball and cap the nearly full stationary goal. After they cap, they will be able to uncap their opponent’s stationary goal because it will only take them about 15-20 seconds to hang. This small amount of time to hang is fair because they will be able to grab the bar and hang from the carpet. Bottom line: Lots of small balls will be scored and doubled, they will have some defense, and an extremely smart and fast hanging device.
Second possbility:
They will build a machine that is similar to Team 190. I think they will have a five arm system - yes five, independent arms! One arm will grab the bar in autonomous, the second and the third arms will defend the rest of the bar, the fourth arm will be able to cap and uncap their stationary goal, and the fifth arm will be able to cap and uncap the opponents stationary goal. Bottom line: They will get on the bar very fast, hang, defend, uncap, and cap the respective goals.
Whatever 71 does, plan on the machine being very consistent and having anti-tipping mechanisms due to last year’s robot’s tipping problems.
Well, this is just what has been bumbling in my head for the past three weeks, what about yours?
I’m going to go out on a limb, and guess that they’ll do something that I just thought of today. It seems like a Beatty-esque idea. The basic concept is, the robot has a big basket of some sort, one strong arm, and one really long thin arm. The robot drives under the ball chute in autonomous, opens up the basket, and then swings out a reall long arm to hit the nearest ball tee and release and catch all 18 balls in autonomous mode. The strong arm is a possible addition to this design, and will grab the doubler and hang. One possible variation: the ball tee whacking arm has a hook on the end for hanging on the bar, in lieu of a separate bar-grabbing arm. Anyways, I don’t know how likely this idea is, but 71 has used a big swinging arm before, and Mr. Noble told me at Great Lakes that they were doing “something that hasn’t been seen before” and, well, this hasn’t been seen before. So, it’s my best guess.
Hmm, maybe they’ve finally made a robot that can fly!
Actually, I origanally expected them to do the same thing 1241 does, but the “something that hasn’t been seen before” hint makes me wonder. They usaully find some way to control the entire match, but this years game seems very difficult to control. Whatever they do, I’m sure we’ll all be kicking ourselves for not thinking the same thing or for having the same idea and dismissing it.
Haven’t you people learned yet? You won’t get anything out of them until their first regional. Guess all you want, but it looks like nobody outside of their team will know anything for sure until this Thursday at the Midwest Regional…
I believe that they will have a basket with a long arm to knock the 10 point ball off the tee in autonomous, they feed those 18 balls to their human player…go get their opponents 18 balls as they fall (if not triggered during autonomous mode) and bring a mobile goal back on their way back with the other 18 balls…they take the 2x ball off the mobile goal while feeding the next 18 balls to the human player…by then, the stationary goal will be close to full…they will cap the stationary goal and then be able to hang quickly. It is very easy to do this all if you have a reliable robot (with all the above mentioned capabilities) and good drivers.
5 Arms??? You have them having one arm for their goal, and one arm for their opponents goal…Why not just have one arm and have their gear (or in our case capstone) above the bar so that they arm can go up and over the bar like ours? It works quite well, and it can be controlled and very quick if perfected.
71 will be able to do everything possilbe… while hanging on the bar. they can cap any goal, block the bar, even herd balls… while hanging!!! hehehe :ahh: :ahh: :ahh:
Mr Bill and son Brian are way ahead of everyone else. These 2 guys and their awesome crew will bring out a machine with the capabilities of nothing we have ever seen before. They will start out flat on the ground for autonomous and shoot straight for the opposite end of the platform (opponents side), drop down into low gear on the file cards from a couple years ago and push the entire goal back towards their end of the field (thus making the opponents human shoot twice as far - and their students shoot 4 feet) after pushing the platform they will stand back up and unleash a long telescoping pole and grab the bar - and hoist themselves up to the top where they will then release a scissors mechanisms that severs the strings, cables, and ropes of all of the other hanging robots. But, because they are the gracious professionals that they are, they will slowly lower each of the opponents from the hooks that they had attached to them - prior to cutting them free! Can’t wait until Midwest Regional this weekend to see their “Beast”!
There are pictures of the last 3 years of team beatty, 2001 and 2002 being a championship winning robot. I could not find a picture of '97 though, the other year they won.
In auton mode it will float to the 18 balls and suck them all up into a small basket that temporarily stores them in an alternate universe. Then it floats to the center platform grabs the 2x ball with a powerful suction device (not unlinke 267 Demolition Squad) then quickly sits in front of the chute waiting to feed the balls back to their human player (who will be an android with a 100% shooting accuracy). After Auton mode the robot feeds all of the balls to the android. Then caps the soon filled goal. And floats to the platform where it will sit on top of the bar. From the bar it can move side to side and efficiantly defend it. It’s capper apendage will be telloscopic and easily be able to decap the opposition’s stationary goal. It will also have a tractor beem to pull it’s alliance partner onto the bar in the last 10.5 seconds of the game.
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OR, they’ll try and control the game like they have in past years (but with in reason). I foresee a very good hanging/capping system. And possibly a good autonomous mode.
