Now that the robots are snuggled comfortably in their crates I am wondering how many teams gave their robots a separate dedicated Empty Cell handler mechanism? I mean a separate way to collect, store, and deliver the one Empty Cell you are allowed to possess at any one time. I have seen a lot of pictures and video of robots posted and a many have really cool pickup mechanisms to collect the balls from the floor and store in a hopper to be scored. It is hard to tell most of the time if there is a separate “Empty Cell Handler” or if the plan is to just collect them like Moon Rocks.
Does your bot have a separate dedicated “Empty Cell Handler” and why or why not?
Nope, any balls that we are collecting from the floor will be delivered to our human players, so there is no need to have a separate empty cell handler.
We ditched the original empty cell carrier plan for size reasons, but we have this nice 40lb withholding allowance and several weeks to complete the new design…
I really want to see a team shoot the balls into the air lock instead of taking the time to drive over and deposit (and then drive back to get another empty cell). I know there are a several teams that have the range to shoot, but I’m not sure about the accuracy. Maybe you could even get the camera to lockon to your human player’s colored shirt. I think if a team could do this they can be really sucessful.
My team has built a pseudo empty cell handling system, it holds a said empty cell in the front of the robot, over the collection mechanism, and when we want to eject it, we need to drive the collection mechanism reverse, forward, then reverse and it shoots right out into the airlock. Now the last challenge, convince my team to attempt to collect the empty cell in autonomous. (legal?)
Yup! I’ve been really surprised at the lack of Empty Cell carriers. Even if you’re down 14 Moon Rocks, two well placed Super Cells can save the day. They’ll be huge, especially in the elimination matches.
Team 558 has a function to store empty cells at the bottom of our belt system and direct them right into the airlock. We will even have a light telling alliance partners to give us those empty cells!
1458 has a backup plan for empty cells concerning how vital their roll is in the game. unfortunatly our weekend practice turned out not to be enough of an example for us to decide if super cells were important. Our hopper sides are a netting material, so adding empty cell ability would be as simple as adding a bal sized hole in the side of our hopper at the height of the hole.
1319 has a dedicated empty cell carrier, for anyone that may have seen the robot it was left off puposefully for the scrimmage, because we didn’t want to give **too **much away. Although this method still only had a certain degree of success. We think it will help us greatly.
The pneumatic cylinders we decided to use for them didn’t end up arriving until ship day :(. But (if there is weight) team 2506 will have two, one on each side depending on which way we are coming from (we know you can only hold one at a time).
I am very surprised many teams do not have this as well. 121 does have such a device.
I envision some team’s may become SCSs (Super Cell Specialists), teams that can effectively get empty cells to human players and score super cells, and will seed high. These teams may not be the best at scoring rocks but may be a nice addition to an alliance.
There were a few hidden mechanisms on our robot when I posted the render of Team 228’s robot, which were also kept off the robot for the Suffield Scrimmage. Could there be a dedicated empty cell handler? Will our drive-by maneuver make a come back on 2009?
I guess you’ll have to wait for the Connecticut Regional to find out.
we have a servo connected to a “hook” that can pick up an empty cell on driveby if the human player just barely sticks it through the hole. the hook then rotates to drop the ball, which bounces off the bumpers into the loading dock.
pretty neat, though ive never seen them use it. they mostly just have the payload specialist drop the ball onto the floor and just sweep it up.
