Nails as rope acquisition method?

[ShotgunNinja]

Hey folks,

So we had an outside engineer help our team out by mocking up a climber. Of course, we didn’t receive this climber until Week 6, so it looks like it’ll serve as the basis for our competition climber (after some modifications to make it competition-legal in terms of motor selection, of course )

Only problem with that, though, is that our outside engineer decided to use nail points (as opposed to the head of the nail) on the central spindle to grip the rope. (Yes, we’re using our own rope, don’t worry!)

What we want to know is if we can get away with using nail points, if we’ll have to round them off or grind them down to avoid having a dangerous implement, or if we’ll have to come up with some other method for gripping our rope.

[EricH]

@ShotgunNinja

Hey folks,

So we had an outside engineer help our team out by mocking up a climber. Of course, we didn’t receive this climber until Week 6, so it looks like it’ll serve as the basis for our competition climber (after some modifications to make it competition-legal in terms of motor selection, of course )

Only problem with that, though, is that our outside engineer decided to use nail points (as opposed to the head of the nail) on the central spindle to grip the rope. (Yes, we’re using our own rope, don’t worry!)

What we want to know is if we can get away with using nail points, if we’ll have to round them off or grind them down to avoid having a dangerous implement, or if we’ll have to come up with some other method for gripping our rope.

Nail points? I’d be worried about field damage, even with your own rope, and sharp items are going to cause your inspectors concern. Definitely something to unsharpen. Once that’s done, you’ll be more OK than not, but still have a backup in case your LRI (or the Head Ref) decides that it’s a risk.

[cgmv123]

I would not pass a robot with exposed sharp nail points. Note that I said exposed.

[ShotgunNinja]

Ok, thanks for the fast reply! Nice to hear from one of the RIs that will be inspecting our bot

We’ll figure out another acquisition method, that doesn’t involve sharp points.

[Joe_Ross]

Have you accounted for the labor of the outside engineer on your CAW?

[Jeff_Pahl]

I see you will be attending both the Wisconsin and 7 Rivers regionals - I am not the LRI for Wisconsin, but I am for 7 Rivers…

Without seeing your robot (or any pictures), I can’t make a definitive assessment of the acceptability of your mechanism. But my gut feel based on your description is: unless it’s buried deep inside the robot with no chance of any part of the field or a human making contact with it, I’d have to say it’s probably not going to pass, if on no other basis than the sharp edges rule

[JasdeepSadam]

@ShotgunNinja

Hey folks,

So we had an outside engineer help our team out by mocking up a climber. Of course, we didn’t receive this climber until Week 6, so it looks like it’ll serve as the basis for our competition climber (after some modifications to make it competition-legal in terms of motor selection, of course )

Only problem with that, though, is that our outside engineer decided to use nail points (as opposed to the head of the nail) on the central spindle to grip the rope. (Yes, we’re using our own rope, don’t worry!)

What we want to know is if we can get away with using nail points, if we’ll have to round them off or grind them down to avoid having a dangerous implement, or if we’ll have to come up with some other method for gripping our rope.

If by nail points you mean nail you hit into the wall, then I think that may be a bad idea.
What our team did was we drilled 2 holes into a rod, 1 bigger than the other. WE stuck some bolts through so the bolthead was still inside, but the bolt could catch the rope. IDK if you can take out the nail points or not. You just may not want to go with something so sharp, because that may not pass inspection, let alone cut the rope.
Hope this helped

[CalTran]

@JasdeepSadam

If by nail points you mean nail you hit into the wall, then I think that may be a bad idea.
What our team did was we drilled 2 holes into a rod, 1 bigger than the other. WE stuck some bolts through so the bolthead was still inside, but the bolt could catch the rope. IDK if you can take out the nail points or not. You just may not want to go with something so sharp, because that may not pass inspection, let alone cut the rope.
Hope this helped

I assume by nail points they mean they (somewhat accidentally) straight up made a nail bat.

[rich2202]

I would argue that it is a Morning Star from last year’s First Stronghold KOP.

[Al_Skierkiewicz]

I have to go with Jeff’s post above. I would also like to add…
I bet if you think about this application just a little bit longer you could come up with a better solution.

[jvriezen]

A side point here. An outside engineer mocked up the climber. Who designed the climber? I’ve never encountered/considered a case where a non-team member designed a robot mechanism (other than COTS components). I know you can have outside vendors fabricate parts, if you account for the cost, but can you have them design things for you?

I’ve always assumed that team members do the design of the bot, allowing for consultation with folks from other teams or outside opinions, but wondering if asking an outside mechanical engineer to design a mechanism makes sense.