Creative uses for servos?

If anybody has any creative uses or has any good ideas on how to use servos on a robot please share them here.

shift the drill gearboxes with them

Cory

I"m not sure how you would do that! :confused:

Well, you would need to fabricate a servo mount and a custom shifting linkage.

Another good use for servos is to mount sensors on to scan back and forth for HP stacks or other reflective tape.

*Originally posted by dddriveman *
**I"m not sure how you would do that! :confused: **

Attach them to the shaft collar on the drill motors, so that when the servos are rotated, the collar shifts positions.

Though, this is not longer very original, anymore.

thanx for the idea sanddrag

Check the white papers for the servo shifting. There are a couple designs in there.

I’ll check the white pages for Servo shifting. Thanks again sanddrag

we used servos to engage… disengage our brakes

Clever use of a servo motor

In Houston I found one team using a servo as a vacuum release mechanism for their suction cup. The servo was used to close or pinch off a piece of tubing thereby keeping their suction cup fully engaged. If necessary the servo would open the tube - releasing the vacuum. A clever and simple release mechanism.

Often servos are used as release mechanisms at the beginning of matches so that a robot can expand outside its constrained envelope.

I found a way to flip down the motor the powers the flashing lights on our robot. THE motor is spring loading so you can make the light spin or not spin . Useless but, fun:)

just don’t do that in an official competition :wink:

I know. But when you are not in competition it is fun to do.:]

*Originally posted by dddriveman *
**I found a way to flip down the motor the powers the flashing lights on our robot. THE motor is spring loading so you can make the light spin or not spin . Useless but, fun:) **

Also, if you wedge a small disc on between the pinion (like, say, a small piece of a glue stick), the light will turn at a little over 2x the normal speed. Again, not legal, but fun to mess with when you have nothing else to do.

Not that our team would ever be sitting around, or ever be doing ANYTHING like that…

you can also short the resistor in the light to make it go faster. Again not legal but fun anyway. Its also interesting to hook it up to a speed controller. lol

Anyway i’m not sure if this counts but i made this from the FIRST provided servos.

We have several…
Over the years we have used servos to activate a microswitch on the robot for a program branch jump, to drop an anchor to hold us on a ramp, release a magic tongue and this year we used servos to brake the drive mechanism for our wings (that is what holds them up at the end of the match!) Sometimes you don’t need a lot of power, just the will to move.

At one of the regionals in 2003 I noticed one team (I don’t recall the no.) that was using a servos to interface with the Victor 884. The servo was used to activate a switch that was wired to the brake / coaster jumper on the Victor. This enabled the team to actively change the drive system from a dynamic brake system to a coast system. I am not sure what their reasoning was but it was a very clever way to overcome a problem. Simply put the servos can be used to activate switches of all types to suit the needs of the robots.

In 2001 my team used a servo to wave a small American flag back in forth

My team has never used the servos, but we will next year…

Anyway, you can use it to shift gears as many say, or do useless stuff, but I saw one team that put two servos on their lamp and raised or lowered it every time they had to go under the bar. The only problem was it took too long to move one time, and they broke their lamp. You can buy servos withing a huge range of power, from about 5 oz/in of torque to about 1000 oz/in.

*Originally posted by Veselin Kolev *
** You can buy servos withing a huge range of power, from about 5 oz/in of torque to about 1000 oz/in. **
You can buy wheelchair motors with a huge range of power that doesn’t mean you can use them. Servos not provided in the kit are illegal since they have a motor inside. Sorry. :frowning: