First of i wasnt sure where to post this lol. in this statement
“the FLAG is
approximately vertical and the top of the FLAG is 75 inches above the floor.
As the flag pole is approximately 36 inches long, that means the top of the
flag holder must be 51 inches above the floor.”
it says the flag holder must be 51in. off the floor?? this isnt even possible for small robots, what do they mean? plz clarify, i dont get it, because the top of ours is about 35 in, must we have some long piece of metal sticking out the top connecting to the pvc in order to make it 51in.?
Team 1501 had a similar issue, our robot base in 27" wide and we needed to pass a 40" dia ball through the window over the robot which meant our flagpole would be hit be the ball. We initially thought to make it flexable and let the ball push it out of the way during the tossing of the ball. Then we got scared that the whipping action would loosen the flag and eventually knock it out. We devised a pivoting mount for the flag pole that swings the flag out 12" to the side of our base 500ms before we launch the ball and then retract it shortly afterwards to prevent it from be ripped off from a collision with another robot during our laps to retrieve the tossed balls.
As long as it stays “approximately vertical”, that sounds like a great solution.
1114 last year figured out a way to have their flag pole on their ramp, and then when the ramp deployed it would swing to remain “approximately vertical”. Other teams who had the flag on the ramp allowed it to become “approximately horizontal” with nothing being said by the inspectors. Of course last year there wasn’t a lap counter attached.
Curt,
Sounds like a good solution. I would like to see it.
Everyone,
Yes the rule does imply that a short robot needs to have some vertical structure to hold the flag holder at the required height. 51 inches +/- 1 inch above the floor per R17 and TU#5. Please remember only 1/2" Schedule 40 PVC with an end cap and no weight reducing holes. Please mark your vertical structures so that students in the pit will not hurt themselves leaning over the flag holder.
Note that there’s nothing really wrong with getting your flag knocked out, although if it happened constantly the judges might like you to fix it. You should be more worried about the lap counter-are you sure that there’s going to be clear space around the top of it?
Our main concern was in losing the lap counter. We also talked about it being a possible penalty if it was to happen every match especially if they were to be broken from being run over by us or other robots during the matches.
If you look at our video the flag holder was in the out position as the programmers hadn’t installed the code to cycle it prior to the launching of the balls.
