After building our acquiring mechanism we’ve noticed we drop the cube a bit more than we’d like. I believe this is because we pick up the cube flat from the ground and our acquirers only grab hold to the upper part of the box. After observing the robowranglers reveal video we noticed that with their acquirer the box actually moves up, turning 90 degrees. (You can see it very well in the reveal video at 8 seconds https://youtu.be/LBGNolMARDY?t=8s). We were wondering if anyone had ideas on how they achieved this or if other teams had luck with a similar mechanism.
The cube in the video is being pulled over the bumper. That caused the cube to rotate.
Cubes dropping out of a mechanism is caused by a lack of tension and or grip on the cube. It shouldn’t matter what height the cube is grabbed at or if it gets rotated.
We worked hard on tension and specific wheels to hold the cube. Man I hope it works.
Notice the placement of their intake wheels relative to the height of the cube. Also then notice the height of the bumpers (and later their bare frame) relative to the center of the cube. Their intake wheels are contacting above the center-of-mass of the cube, while their frame/bumper is contacting below. Thus, when they pull the cube into their robot, they have a force near the top of the cube and a force near the bottom of the cube in the opposite direction (their frame pushing back on the cube as the cube is pulled into it). The result of this is that they generate torque (a rotational force) on the cube, causing it to rotate over their frame.
The fun question is, how many teams waited for the reveal videos, to design their intake, based on it being the best one they saw? I only know of one that did. And 148 is the one they copied.
