Risk of thrown algae

Technical
1

With the human player throwing into the barge it seems likely that some will miss and hit a robot. How big of an issue might this pose?

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Be ready

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3

Add a large spike to skewer/ deflect falling alage… like a jousting rod… (evil grin emoji)

4

Be ready indeed

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5

I was thinking a large tennis racket to hit it back :wink:

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6

I guess just make sure the algae doesn’t get jammed in the robot (because that would lead to catastrophe).

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someone asked this after we inflated it yesterday. So I did an underhand toss at our full metal bot and it was fine. However anything plastic might bend/snap from the weight and force. Definitely protect any exposed 3DP or be prepared to make extras.

We are planning to fully cover as much of the electronics panel as possible as well. PVC tubing falling inside of a robot chassis or the deep cage smashing a vertically mounted motor controller is a big concern I have as well

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This is an interesting concern. I hadn’t though about it much before. I agree, it most likely will not pose as a big problem to metal parts on the bot but any lose plastic or even thinner metal structures that are extended (say you have a robot arm extended upwards towards the level 4 coral) could potentially be devastating. Building shielded electronics and power connection points as well as designs that will tuck any extending parts back into the safety of the chassis perimeter is the smartest way to go about decreasing risk of “large object hit bot oh no ack”.

Coral falling inside bot would be potentially more of a concern as it would block the robot from grabbing any additional coral pieces and the heavier/harder PVC may find a way to damage the robot.

9

I would argue a bigger risk is a VH-109 mounted up high for better connectivity getting smacked into a cage by a robot trying to hurry over for a climb.

Probably a question for a different thread, but do we know how the radios respond to having the barge in the way of their signal?

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I dont think that communication with the radios will be cut off by the Barge. In previous events we’ve had large obstructions in the middle of the feild (such as Crescendo with the Stage) and the radios have gotten their signal across easily : )

I like the point you brought up about the cages being a ‘wreaking ball’ issue for the robots. Those could be very distructive. I’m hoping that, since most of the robot activity is confined to the alliance’s side of the feild (with the processsor being the only thing robots would need to cross mid-line for) there won’t be too many instances of swinging cages. I suppose that would just be an issue to be talked out (making sure alliances know what team would cross the line and then how they would cross it to minimize cage swinging) by the coaches of the drive team come competition time. If the shallow cage is swinging, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem and the swinging will cease in a bit. The bigger problem is if the deep cage is hit as that would result in a swinging cage for the remainder of the match.

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Of course, robots must be built robustly.

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This seems like especially good advice, not just for the algae, but also for the whole “swinging steel cages at bot/intake height” thing that I suspect will make for a lot of bad days for those who don’t make spares.

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