Failing successful climbs

Technical Technical Discussion
1

I’m really wondering how many teams will think they have great climbers but come to find out at competition that their climber geometry is such that the trigger plate is not pressed. Team update 4 showed close up pictures of the touch plate and channel, and unless you specifically plan for it, many simple climbers that ‘work’ on the team climbing apparatus may fail to score on competition field.

Does your climber work with the touch pads as shown in team update 4? – In particular, the channel the rope passes through does not move and may stop your robot before a part of it is high enough to trigger the touch plate.

What percentage of teams do you think will have failing climbers due to this reason?

2

We are keeping our climber unbaggdd for a number of reasons one being so we can modify it so It can always hit the touch pad.

I’d say a good 25% of teams with working climbers will not be able to climb at their first event this year.

3

It’s nice to see some optimism in your numbers.

I’d wager upwards of 40-50%.

4

Agreed. Our team has built climbers and then just never attached/used them at the first event because too many other things needed fixing/tuning and what not. This year however I think we will climb first match. I may retract that last sentence once we actually get our climber built and attached. But I am optimistic.

5

It would be really nice if we had a good way to mock up the touchpad…

6

I built three copies for our week zero event airship-- I’m hoping it is reasonably close in behavior to the real thing. Made with 2x4’s, plywood, a plastic disk, some carriage bolts, nuts and washers, PVC pipe, a 9v battery some wire and a robot signal light. Light indicates pad is displaced – but it is not delayed one second, unfortunately.

We’ll find out in a couple of days.

7

I think this is accurate but I think about half of those teams will be able to solve it by the elimination rounds of their first competition.