Rubber Hose on the Spider Feet?!

Competition Rules/Strategy
#1

Alright so,

At the Richmond/VCU kickoff event we were allowed to view the design of the rack. Though, we found something on the rack that was not on the game animation video nor the game revelation (i think?). There is a rubber hose about 6"-7" long sticking up from the top of the spider’s “foot.” We thought that this would make it slightly harder to place a tube on the rack, (both by dropping it on top and pushing it over and through the spider leg) so we have designed our robot accordingly. Can anyone confirm if this device will be present at the competitions themselves? Take a look.
Pictures (sorry for not resizing):


(sorry didn’t have time to rotate it)

#2

That rubber hose is called the “stinger”. There has been plenty of discussion about it around here, and it is definitely present in the manual. So yes, expect to see it at competition.

#3

It’s called the “stinger”, and it’s in the rack drawings.

#4

Yes, the real field has the rubber hose - known as the stinger. It an 8" piece of J30R7 fuel hose, 5/16" ID. It is shown on the drawings for the wooden field as part T.
Eric

#5

but the stinger in the design drawings is mounted lower down that it is on the rack you have pictured…so you might want to carefully check where it really is going to be instead of assuming that the pictures you posted show it correctly.

#6

I wanted to ask you guys who have built a field with the stingers, how hard is it to flex the stinger? our teams arm is just long enough that we will still hit the stinger when putting the tube on. It looks like it is pretty malleable, but i don’t know first hand. We will get some of this stuff at some point, i just want to know if it will be a problem or not.

thanks
–Dan

#7

It’s not hard (requires very little force to bend), but it isn’t paper either. Simply throwing a tube at the stinger won’t bend it, you will actually have to push it a little.

For us the stinger seems to make it harder to get tubes off then it is to get them on.

#8

I’m told that keeping the tubes from coming off too easily is precisely the purpose of the stinger.

#9

I believe it is. It seems to be harder to bend that direction.