“Common knowledge” would suggest that, with four omniwheels at the corners, we’d have spun off this precarious lift like a top with a deathwish. We managed to stay on the lift and go up for 30 bonus points – marking the only time this season where ‘X7’ was on the receiving end of bonus points.
Our center of gravity is about 9" above the bottom of the robot, dead center. Paying attention to things like that can be a lifesaver (and a match winner).
That is crazy, some serious luck was on your side. Why can’t I get some of that…
Was there a particular reason why “X7” was receiving?
I never thought an awesome lifter like 488 would end up being lifted, wow.
And yeah, why did you guys end up being the one lifted? And that would’ve scared me, that must have been a lot of luck, wished we had some of that in our matches.
We and 279 each designed easy-to-use lifting systems and thus have relatively low clearance above the ground. At the time we were allied together, neither team had ever climbed another’s ramps or lifts – so we were unsure who was best to leave to lifting.
While queued behind the field, we removed one of our lifts and allowed 279 to see if they had the ground clearance to make it up – and when they tried, they ended up hitting and buckling one of our ramps instead of climbing it. The ramp was already cracked and we had a replacement ready before getting back to the pit, but it was vital to our victory that match that we were able to test things out in advance. Our machine, ‘X7’, had the clearance needed to climb up on 279, so we did what was best for the alliance – even if it hurt my pride a little bit 
How did you monitor the CG during build? I am assuming that you had a multi-person CAD enterprise going on during build.
Mark
Maybe in the future, we’ll become multi-person, but for now – it’s all me. The only part of the machine I didn’t CAD this past season was the layout of the electrical board.
man I can see the suspense with that, not only does it look like it could fall at any moment in this picture, but the clock still says 28 secs!! thats way to long ( for me anyways ) to sit and hope to god the bot doesn’t fall off.:ahh:
This photo was taken in the midst of the mechanism’s operation – a few moments later, 279’s lift leveled off and lifted us to a full 12"+.
The video of the match shows the lift pretty well. http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match.php?matchid=4262
Sometimes you get paired up with teams that can’t drive up any ramps. We were paired up 3 times with robots that had about a quarter inch clearance. They said they could not climb any ramps. Even the best ramps can’t be used sometimes.
Hehe, this is why our team called 279 the “Scary Lift that works” Its always a nail biter when it lifts