Hey everybody. My Team, [size=]4567, will luckily be attending this years World Championship. In our regional this year (our 1st one!) we just picked up our robot from the metal brackets and carried it onto the playing field. I was just wondering what other FIRST teams do in regards to this issue? I saw some teams used meat hooks while others did the same as us. Thanks for helping us and hopefully we shall see you next week![/size]
Some teams add attachment points along the robot frame for clip on handles or simply manufacture handles that are a permanent part of the robot frame.
This year we lift it by some convenient spots on our cut and folded sheet metal frame. They are there by coincidence but work well.
Most people just hold it by the frame. That’s what we’ve always done.
If you want a really comfortable handle, you can loop a big zip tie through a thick piece of surgical tubing and secure it to your drive train. If you make the handle big enough it works like a charm. If you have the room for it, its a great way to carry the robot.
Since we had to have belay points anyway, we put the required two eye-bolts at the center of our side-rails and added four extras on the robot corners. When carrying the robot, the students clip on handles made from rope, carabiners, and a short small-diameter PVC section for a handgrip.
This year’s frame was a bit short on good handholds, so I think it’s been a good choice.
My team has been looking into some anti-gravity methods with no luck. So right now we just carry the robot by the 8020 base.
Unrelated—I vow to never build a robot 70" with no drive train and has to fit under a 30 inch bar and shoots Frisbees
I think this is what we are going to do. Thanks for the replies everyone!
Make sure you get carabiners, eye bolts, and rope that are rated for the weight. The cheap carabiners won’t hold up under robot weight.
We have the eye bolts, PVC pipe and rope. Where did you guys get your carabiners?
I don’t know where we got ours, since I missed that particular shopping run, but I can provide suggestions.
Grainger definitely has some that should suit. Hardware stores or sporting goods stores that cater to climbers may be good sources also. Just check the max load capacity and be sure to allow a safety factor. The unmarked ones you tend to see in the sporting goods aisle at Target/Walmart are typically rated for about 5 lbs, so they’re likely to fail spectacularly when you hang a 150 lb (including battery and bumpers) robot from 4-6 of them.
I made them today and I am sure they are going to hold our 115lb robot. Thanks for the help!
wear gloves too :rolleyes: it’s what we do, since quarter inch metal is not the best thing on the hands, but we also grab at the upper part of our frame
353 is the team your talking about with the meat hooks we picked 4 of them up heated them and bent them to what suits our robot( to reach inside and not be in the way of our bumpers) and we used 3/4 inch inside diameter eye bolts that were taller then the height of our bumpers
The reason we don’t hold by our frame is we have a lexan skirt underneath to push frisbees out of our way
My team has some rope on 4 steel i hooks on the 4 corners of our robot which is terrible uncomfortable and I am only able to use 2 fingers to do it. It’s terrible. Team 3883 The Data bits have similar system, but it is much better. they have a bigger loop on each one with 3/4 inch pvc about 6 inches long. It looks way more comfortable and has seemed to work well for them and we’re taking note of it and using it next year.
Yea we were talking about those meat hooks on Friday and how ingenious they were. I just made the PVC handlesvwith the ropes and clips today. I think those should work and if they don’t ugh well. We have bumpers that have velcro in order to switch between blue and red and the Velcro falls off during matches. In order to prevent that we have staples at the bottom to hold the fabric in place. The staples sometimes cut my hands so hopefully these handles I made will prevent that.
As a lead team que I’ve seen many a teams take their robots onto the field. The proper way to do it is to have one person (not two and certainly not three) go and place the controls in the proper drivers station (if you’re unsure where ask a team que member they have your assignment) Two team member lift the robot (gloves are recommended. The robot is heavy with hard sharp edges. It doesn’t feel good) and the last member move the cart out of the way and puts it in the spot designated where carts wait to be retrieved after the match. One of my biggest pet peeves is teams carelessly leaving their cart at the side of the field in the way of teams and especially volunteers who could be injured by said cart. It is the team’s responsibility to take care of your cart and not doing so is a one way ticket to get on my bad side in a hurry. The first time I’ll remind you. The second tie I will firmly tell you. The third time I get mad and the fourth time…I get creative. So please take care of your cart.
I always cringe when I see teams pushing their powered-down robot across the field to get it to the edge before lifting, or to get it into position after lifting.
Speed controllers do not take to such abuse all that kindly, and while it’s unavoidable to some degree (like in pushing matches on the field), where it is avoidable it should be avoided.
Alot of kids are so caught up with what has happened or what is about to happen they don’t think clearly and do some goofy things like forget to turn on the robot or set the Autonomous mode properly or go out the wrong field access or do things to the robot that should not be done.
I try to get handles into the design of our robots…sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. This year is not too bad, but the “handles” are 1/8" thick aluminum, so gloves are helpful. The past couple years we used “meat hooks”, they work but they are inconvenient compared to having handles built into the robot.
Years ago I got a nasty bite on my finger from loading a handle-less robot into a truck for trip to a demonstration…never again.