Is there anything in the rules that prevents a grappling hook from being used during the last 20 seconds?
As I have grasped, there is nothing in the rules preventing it, my team was actually joking about it as we have a “grappling hook gun”. It just says the dimensions and how it is built to support scaling robots. My team has not talked about scaling yet but I am opposed to the idea because of the possibility of damaging the robot.
No rule against it. any type of rope or cable might be considered a “entanglement hazard” though… so you’d have to be careful of that.
A hook would be pretty cool, but I think that the options presented in the video are more reliable.
I would use caution, and pay attention to the safety rules. I don’t think it would be illegal just because it’s a grappling hook, but the exact methodology should be considered carefully.
If the hook misses, and lands more than 15 inches from your robot, that would be a violation.
The problem with the use of a grappling hook, is that the goal opening is very near to the bar you use to climb, so if you miss your hook may be caught on the goal opening, and that could cause problems because a) you couldn’t climb and B) at the end of the match you would have to figure how to get that hook down
Also if you miss, you are in violation of G12. The manual also says that in that situation, you can be assigned an additional yellow card for egregious robot behaviour.
The real question: 3 prongs or 4?
I don’t see how that would be the case unless your hook sticks in the floor. It should be entirely possible to design to prevent that.
G12 The following actions are prohibited with regards to interaction with ARENA elements (items A-E
exclude any DEFENSE, RUNGS, and BOULDERS)
A. Grabbing
B. Grasping
C. Attaching to (including the use of hook-and-loop tape against the FIELD carpet)
D. Grappling
E. Hanging
F. Becoming entangled
G. Damaging
Violation: FOUL. If the Head REFEREE determines that further damage is likely to occur, offending
ROBOT will be DISABLED. Corrective action (such as eliminating sharp edges, removing the
damaging MECHANISM, and/or re-Inspection) may be required before the ROBOT will be allowed
to compete in subsequent MATCHES.
According to this, I believe it’s perfectly legal if it is a success.
15 inch maximum extension beyond your frame perimeter still applies. You can just extend to an infinite height.
according to G12 as long as said grapple is hooked/latched onto a defense, climbing rung or boulder your good, anything else is no good.
in other words be smart about it and you should be fine.
That would be AWSOME! Our team actually just proposed this. You should consider that you really get only one shot at launching it. Overall I still think that this would be a practical design (less space taken up, lighter, easier to design, etc.)
A grappling hook is a great idea, just not a grappling hook in the general sense… Maybe it could work, but I would hate to only have one try. Consider a spring/motorized arm with a detachable hook on the end of it. The hook would be attached to a winch that is mounted on the robot. Basically it’s a grappling hook, but you’re depositing the hook rather than treating it like a projectile. Something to think about…
I am not worried about only having one try. With the 20 second time limit, I don’t think that you would have time to reload, launch, and lift after missing the first time. Plus a grappling hook could be very reliable if fired behind the bar and banked off of the angle at the bottom of the low goals.
The funny thing is, our team started to joke around about this idea because we had a “grappling hook and winch system” in 2013, but as we went through the preliminary design process and started to design the prototype, it seemed more and more practical. I think it will be interesting what will happen this year with that though.
We’ve played around with some grappling hook ideas for past games, although none have ever actually made it onto the robot. If you can, try finding someone from 1592, who designed grappling hook can pullers for last season. They were pretty cool. We may still have the CAD for some 3D printed claws that close on impact around a bar (basically, once the bar hits something inside the grasp of the open claw, the claw closes around the bar), if you might find that helpful I’d be happy to see if we can dig up the files and send them to you.
While that might be true, from a reliability perspective I’d take a hook on an arm vs a projectile any day. I’m not saying it won’t work, because I think it would, plus it would be very cool to watch.
This Sucks.
Q. G18 penalizes an extension more than 15" beyond the robot’s frame perimeter. Is plane the measurement occurs in relative to the robot or the field? For instance, a robot uses a grappling hook to climb and tilts 90 degrees as it winches itself up. Do you do the same “virtually transposing the robot to a flat floor” as with R22 to determine if the hook extends greater than 15"?
A. Extensions outside the FRAME PERIMETER are measured in the same plane as the FRAME PERIMETER. As the FRAME PERIMETER is re-oriented (e.g. when a ROBOT drives up the BATTER), the plane of measurement is similarly re-oriented.
I really wish there was some flexibility there.
EDIT:
Smarter people than I can take a look at the geometry below. I used 2.5" to set the robot away from the tower. It seems to me that touching the tower directly behind the RUNG is a penalty as it is 15.7…" inches away.
