Climbing Deep Cages

Competition Rules/Strategy
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First off, we aren’t even sure if climbing is worth it, but I don’t think you can go wrong brainstorming.

So one of the main issues with climbing this game is how much the cages can swing, leading to lots of tilts and turns. When your robot grabs on to a cage from the side, the center of gravity shifts towards the robot, and the bot is more likely to hit the ground. The is especially an issue with the deep cage.

The basic concept of my idea is to keep the center of gravity centered on the cage while climbing, to reduce the swinging and tilt of the robot. Because the deep cage is so low, the idea is to cut out a section of the robot itself to surround the cage from all sides. Then use some mechanism to push up, without wobbling so much.

The deep cage is 3.5" off the ground, and bumpers must be at least 4.5", so you would need to run into the cage, let it rest on your bot, and guide it into the cutout.

Apologies for the drawing, I did this from my phone.

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There are definitely other ways to approach this, possibly by extending a really heavy arm towards the cage to distribute the weight. I’d like to hear any thoughts anyone has on it!

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This is what I was thinking to climb the deep cage too. I don’t really think its possible to climb deep cage without a balanced center of gravity, because it’s so low that basically any tipping will result in the robot touching the floor.

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My thoughts exactly! I just don’t know the best way to approach this

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Thats a really really good idea. I think the biggest issue is that there are no split bumpers allowed this season.

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maybe do a lifting mechanism at the front of the robot so the deep cage can be stably lifted up, and then guiding it over the flat robot covering into the hole

thats assuming that nothing’s blocking the front of the robot though

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Yeah, but you don’t necessarily need a break in the bumper. You can run at the cage and keep pushing until it’s high enough for your robot to slip under. Then it would just be resting on the surface of you bot (or in the cutout)

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I see… i like this vision

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could you explain this a little more?

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Oh I think I see what you mean! Like instead of just running and pushing at it, have a mechanism to lift the cage over your bumper?

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yeah, but thinking about it now I feel like just pushing it until it goes in the hole is probably simpler and just as effective

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First thing that came to mind.

A lot of teams that climbed in 2010 climbed on the vertical poles and would likely work for the deep cages too with appropriate design tweaks.

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Interesting! I think this may work, you’d just have to focus on really holding on to the cage itself since we can’t grab the chain. Going vertical really does reduce the amount of robot that can touch the ground

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I feel like this would work less well because holding onto the cage would mean the robot’s center of gravity is further from the chain (as opposed to just climbing a chain)

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You are not allowed to touch the chain or any of the top surfaces of the cages. It must be either the bottom surface or the pipes, and the pipes seem like the easier of the two to hold onto.

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I was thinking something very similar. Not quite the same way to attach but using the method of pushing the cage foreword. I belive that if you got up to the low cage and pushed it forword to a amout where the cage would move foreword. Then having a hook to hook into the bottom plate of the cage. From there you have a mechanism that could be located roughly on the back third mark of the robot (also the center of gravity close to as well). The mechanism would go upwords and grab the inside, top third of the cage. From there the robot would lift the back of the robot to be parallel to the cage beacuse the center of gravity is back more on the robot the cage and chain would swing back aligning the center of gravity of the robot with the chains anchor. Becuse the weight is in the back the front will lift of the ground and robot will become parallel with the cage. Im currently working on drawings to help explain this better. In the mean time feel free to comment with any questions. As soon as i get the drawings done i will share. Hopefully it helps clear things up. Any comments help too if it makes sence lol.

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16

Could you possibly use the hole in the center of the bottom of the deep cage?

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I havent thought of a way yet to use it because of how close to the ground it is its hard to really get under it. For the high cage i definitely see people trying to put a locking mechanism of some sort into it. But for the lower one i dont see how you could rely on in only using it to hang.

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for shallow, yes thats allowed. for deep, it is also allowed but like Marshall said, likely way too difficult due to height

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I agree with Marshall, I just can’t figure out how to utilize it on the deep cage. With the shallow one, you could treat it like a hole in the wall and hook into it with a Molly wall anchor-type instrument. Then pull your whole bot up

image

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Magnets

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