Alright so here’s how it’s probably going to go down. Key Elements of the winning robot will be:
Cycling to the top middle (break out the 2012 and 2016 shooter designs), Controls is going to be huge, (Specifically Color Identification) but it will be easy since the computer can just read its own display and say the something like “turn wheel (power on at x power of the wheel until) color Y value arrives at position and is not in zone A or C. Even have the wheel mapped so it can look at the three colors at once and say, if zone A is x, zone B is y and Zone C is z then I only need to power my motor for 37 rotations until we get the right color in position.
End Game:
Middle Hangs, maybe even with the ability to readjust on the edge of the climber, for example a tiny wheels on the end of the climber robot’s grippers to readjust and balance the middle bot. But how would we get enough torque to be able reposition the entire robot? Would we need it? Danger of damaging other robots. Center of balance would be easiet to readjust from the middle requiring less forces to readjust, so levers say get to the middle to balance best. Assuming everyone is at max weight (which cant be gaurnteed) it would be best just to vary the middle robots position to account for it. Giving it a strong clamped position with its grippers and then allowing it to shift its center of gravity with its arm lengths.
A clamp with wheels
Or even the robot’s arms being able to readjust their angles in relation to the robot frame to adjust the center of gravity affecting the balance. This will be interesting to see practiced over and over again.
Even allowing the arm lengths to dynamically change to adjust to the new weight balance distbutuon. Even creating an automated system to sense weight distribution on the beam and automatically readjust to the new center of gravity dynamically with a refresh rate of a few tenths of a second. Making the arms something that deploys quickly like a piston to attach then sets the piston into a neutral position, and then be adjusted in its length using a cord that is pulled onto or let out of a small gear box on either side of the robot to adjust the robots C.O.G. (center of mass) in relation to the C.O.G of the beam as each unique end game situation presents it self.
Fixed grips, adjusting arm positions, can create gearing box at the base in the frame for each arm or something similar.
-Ground pick ups.
Would like to see More or less something like 971s 2016 robot. Modified for this competition.
Other Thoughts on Key Design elements?