Let me guess… a sudden change in the direction of a HUGE flywheel. Or am I mistaking the bulge in the center of the robot for something else?
A jumping robot? Won’t do you much good with a trailer – but still awesome!!!
Im guessing you are not using this for the competition by the way
its the first lowrider robot it had hydrolics
Sachem haha love ur bot iv seen the vids the gyro is workin well 4 ya i hope u guys win the inovation award 
I’m curious to see more, specifically how it relates to this:
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11225
-John
If used for turning it is in no way aiding in traction, it is aiding in manuevering, so I see no problem, but, of course, I am not a ref nor a member of the GDC…
You would be right, but “HUGE” depends on your point of view. If you think a 12" diameter, ~20 lbs fly wheel driven 1:1 by a CIM, is huge then yah, it’s huge. It is the robot we’re using, we just removed the top half of it for testing the gyro out, which is why the battery is held on with a clamp. We didn’t mean for it to jump we were just testing out its driving capabilities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJMuKH9WkZo if anyone is interested to where the still frame is from.
It would turn signifigantly better if you guys could somehow shorten up your wheel base a bit…the shorter you make it the better it will be…
A little late in the season for that change 
I hate seeing Q&A posts that kill an idea I had early on in the season.
So much for making my own bot based on that very question by the team for off-seasons & just to play around with. 
If <R06> rules this out, I’ll eat my hat. The gyro is applying a moment to the robot, not a force. The net downward force of the robot has to stay the same, as long as all 4 wheels are on the ground. If the gyro actually causes the robot to pop a wheelie as seen in the video, then that could be an infraction. Maybe. There’s arguably an increase in normal force when the CoM accelerates upwards, and when the robot ultimately falls down again.
The mechanism obviously isn’t designed with this in mind, however, so you can’t declare it illegal, per the GDC’s recent ruling about mechanisms that have the potential to exceed the starting size of the robot. At worst, the refs would call a penalty whenever the robot popped a wheelie. At which point, you’d have to penalize every robot that ever popped a wheelie from running into a wall, another robot, etc., etc. Which is ludicrous, to my mind.
Granted, I’m not the GDC, and they’ve been making some pretty difficult to enforce rulings lately in the name of applying rules universally and with excessive consistency… So I’ll be on the lookout for good hat recipes, just in case.
If its <R06> they DQ us on I’ll eat my entire outfit. The only rule that I’m worried about is:
<R01>: Energy used by FIRST Robotics Competition ROBOTS, (i.e., stored at the start of a
MATCH), shall come only from the following sources:
A. Electrical energy derived from the onboard 12V battery
B. Compressed air stored in the pneumatic system, stored at a maximum pressure of 120 PSI
in no more than four Clippard Instruments tanks. Extraneous lengths of pneumatic tubing
shall not be used to increase the storage capacity of the air storage system.
C. A change in the altitude of the ROBOT center of gravity.
D. Storage achieved by deformation of ROBOT parts. Teams must be very careful when
incorporating springs or other items to store energy on their ROBOT by means of part or
material deformation. A ROBOT may be rejected at inspection if, in the judgment of the
inspector, such items are unsafe.
Other then telling us its storing energy illegally or storing it unsafely, I think we’re safe
<R01> should not be a problem at all with this robot as I understand it. There is no energy stored in the motionless gyro at the start of the match.
how much does that weigh??
Originally it was 34.25lbs, but that was when it was a solid mass. Now that it has spokes and they took off some of the rim, I believe it’s around 20lbs.