Our robot starts out in the 4 foot category, then locks up a 10 foot elevator. Anyone who saw it at PNW or Davis knows what I mean.
And we have two cameras. Because remember, it’s as Mark Leon said at SVR last year: “CMU cam, it’s just that easy.” So we went with two.
I absolutely love all of the features that our team was able to work into our robot this year (seen here), it’s flippin’ sweet! A short list:
Arm:
-Light and strong! I think the entire assembly weighs under 20 lbs with camera, motors, wiring, etc.
-Single jointed, runs off of a single 125:1 banebots motor (which has survived an entire competition with no problems at all)
-Completely modular: Mast comes off with a single bolt! Motor and joint mounts are held on with clamps so they can be easily adjusted with just two bolts.
-Awesome materials: 1/16" thick, 3" wide round alluminum tube for mast, 1/8" thick 2" wide tube for top part of arm. Neither are breaking any day soon.
Drivetrain:
-Made with 4" wide, 1/4" thick fiberglass I-beam. Fairly indestructable.
-Best part of robot: 4 out of the 6 drive trains on the robot have their tensioners built into our Andymark transmissions. They weigh virtually nothing and take up almost no space. (seen here)
One neat feature that caught my eye this year was the “easy button” feature from team 386 (Voltage). They have an easy button mounted by their gripper, so when they are ready to score, the easy button is right in the middle of the tube. When the easy button hits the plates on the spider, the grabber automatically lets the tube go and caps the ringer.
Two unique things about our robot:
Our kicker wheel - it picks tubes off of the floor and turns them vertical
Our grabber - it opens from the inside of the tube, and holds the tube vertically. The long arms of the grabber act as guiding mechanisms so that when we drive up to the goal, the spider foot is pushed into the center of the grabber, where an IR sensor triggers closing the grabber, which shoots the tube onto the goal.
The things unique… our transmission, gripper, wheels.
This system really was quite elegant, and anybody unlucky enough not to see it needs to come to Indianapolis for a private showing. Winner of the BMR Xerox Creativity Award, and well-deserved.
One of the nicest things about our robot is the modularity of it all. The entire ramp mechanism can be detached with two bolts, the pneumatics system and support frame for our ramp can be detached with four, each drive module can be detached with four, and the electronics board can be detached with four. The connections to the pneumatics board (all eight spikes) are all done with 15 pin connectors, and the motors are connected to the main electrical system with mini Anderson connectors.
The most unique design factor is our ramp. The following animation shows how it works.
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3813/rampanimationsmallerim7mp0.gif
Another nice feature is the built in wheelie bars on our drive modules. If you were to loko at our bot, you wouldn’t even realize that the curves did this. The wheelie-bar effect can be seen in this next animation.
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/9789/wheelienb0wo5.gif
And Unique in the fact that we were one of the few teams that decided to go for a low-scorer is our arm. Only the bottom rung, but man can we score fast. ~5 tubes a minute now that we’ve gotten a little practice. (I’ll throw the animation in for kicks, too) 
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/448/scoringanimationti5.gif
Those rollers were actually polyurethane, no?
And of course, we can’t fail to mention the uniqueness of our control system 
Our most unique aspect would defenitly be our spine arm. Even though we had programming problems at the florida regional but those are fixed so look out for some crazy onidirectional tube pickupage!
The most unique feature on our robot is it’s claw which is similair too but nowhere near as cool as the '05 claw.
But at least we have the only manipulator that can give the other robots “the finger”!
Your pickup and gripper may have been one of the coolest things I have ever seen operate on a FIRST robot.
Anyone else have a pair of Reeboks on their robot?
I’m not talking sneakers, 2 RBK 6k stiff flex hockey sticks. Nice & light and made to take a beating.
Our robot is pink…PINK!!
haha
besides that I like our drive system…mainly because I suggested it. It encompasses only one drive wheel on each side, both in the middle. Then four caster on the corners. It can spin 360, which is cool. Nothing compared to meccanum, but it’s still pretty cool.
sorry koko…we too can give “the finger”
And here I thought you guys got a Reebok sponsorhip…:rolleyes:
does having Jesus on your controls count as a unique feature?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v45/preteefairee6/DSC04173.jpg
We can retract our ramps if something goes wrong. We’ve got a Banebots on each, extremely geared down. (Arguably the biggest sprockets I’ve seen for #25 chain in FIRST on the ramp end, and a small set on the motor end.) Also, our hidden pneumatic gripper actuator. It’s buried in a fiberglass tube.
Well if we ever get hooked up in an allince together we can be the “most offensive” alliance.
For us, I would have to say our gearboxes. Heres another thread on it http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54420
In more ways than one