Garnet Squadron 4901 Presents: Sandstorm III

http://i.imgur.com/GhbpFxr.jpg

Competing at Palmetto, Orlando, and hopefully the FIRST Championship.

Slow Motion Tower Shot: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MfuO0p7KCm0

Don’t Storm the Castle, Sandstorm it.

Nice clean packaging. Very elegant.
The bumpers - is that one unit that is replaced? I can’t imagine a red skirt on that keeping tight.

We have 2 full sets of bumpers. One red, one blue. The bumper is removed all at once. Similar to bumpers we used at Championship in 2014. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/40712

Interesting concept, can you talk to the configuration of your pneumatics system, air tank placement, solenoid selection. It appears to be two 3/4" cylinders by 8" Stroke, are they double acting or spring return and what stroke? Any video of the shooter itself? Thanks.

The Boulder shooter is a simple pneumatic linear punch. A single 3/4" bore 11in stroke double acting cylinder punches the Boulder. It has a white fiberglass rod (a driveway reflector rod) mounted underneath with 3D printed guides that acts as a additional linear guide to help keep the puncher in perfect alignment.

I don’t have video of it, but tune in to Palmetto to see it in action.

Beautiful machine! Elegant and simple and I can’t wait to watch Palmetto this weekend. It seems like every team this year is building something awesome!

Great looking robot.

What type gearing is on the main arm ?

3/4" 6061 Aluminum plate custom designed and waterjetted for our arm. The pinion is driven by a CIM powered Versaplanetary The overall reduction on our arm is 300:1.

To answer the other questions:

Air tank placement: This robot is hell for packaging, and that just happened to be the most logical place to mount them. There wasn’t any other mounting surface that was out of the way yet still low enough to clear the low bar.
Solenoid selection: These solenoids were lying around after we converted Sandstorm II from a pneumatic lift to a chain-driven lift at Orlando. They’re McMaster 6425K11 according to my records, which is a pretty proven choice when you want that air out in a hurry.
Cylinders: Double-acting. Normally I’d sweat the air consumption, but there’s enough time between shots that our air compressor is in good shape topping up.
Video: Sure!

Nice slow motion shooting video !

Does your arm have a locking system to account for gear slop ?

Yep! There are notches in the arm gear that a steel rod gets pushed into using cylinders. We poached the idea from 254’s T-shirt cannon and 118’s 2014 robots, and it allows our arm to start up and inside the frame perimeter. Matter of fact, we bagged it that way.

(Now, are all those notches where they need to be? Ask me after Palmetto. :rolleyes: )

That battery placement is pretty #cringetastic :smiley:

It’s actually an optical illusion from the photo angle. There are several inches of space between the battery and the gear.

Ah, okay. It looked way closer! :eek: