All right, so I had this great idea about a robot design, it’s easy to build, and doesn’t require much more additional stuff on teams’ robot, and I thought it was the greatest idea I’ve ever thought of. And I tell my teams about it, and no one really took me seriously. So I thought maybe I will throw this out and see if anyone got lucky and actually paid attention to this.
Basically I assume robots already have an extension on them, to score the home zone 10 points. It isn’t anything fancy. Just some sort of solid light structure that extend 15~20 feet with a really weak motor. And that extension probably want to point forward or backward, so you can score whichever home zone you like. And you probably want to point it at different direction just to be sure you can score that 10 points. See, nothing too complicated. It don’t have to be a strong structure or anything. Just something that point and pull. Using one motor to deploy it, and another to point it. You will have one or two of these, depends if you want to score both home zone or not.
So, base on that, my idea is to replace the weak motor with a fisher price motor or similar ones, use steel cable to extend/retract the extension, and add a hook at the end (the ones you will be using to grab goals). So, once the match start, you point that extension forward toward the goals, extend it, and the hook grab onto the goals with 15 feet reach. BAM! You get to the goal(s) faster than anyone else. And you retract the extension with the steel cable to make sure you can pull the goals back.
The extension don’t have to be anything strong, just need to be able to get the hook onto the goal, and let the fisher price do the job. The advantage is that you get the goals faster than just a drive train, and depends if you did it right, you might be the fastest robot getting to the goals. And it will not little addition to your robot, and some thinging about how to use the retracting motion to unhook the goals as then get near your robot.
i can’t say i thought of the same strategy, but i imagine another robot hitting your “extension” might also break it. But of course, that’s all based on how its designed!
Just have one word for this idea the rule of entanglement
A steel cable jetisoning on a goal and being extended fifteen feet sounds like it would break this rule. Also as the rounds progress I believe robots will know what your up to and begin to account for your strategy and completely take you out of it example: snapping the cable or moving you out of the home zone.
*Originally posted by Todd Derbyshire *
**Just have one word for this idea the rule of entanglement
A steel cable jetisoning on a goal and being extended fifteen feet sounds like it would break this rule. Also as the rounds progress I believe robots will know what your up to and begin to account for your strategy and completely take you out of it example: snapping the cable or moving you out of the home zone. **
Just one of the many ideas of course. And all you need it is the first 5 seconds to pull the goals in. Nothing the other teams can do about that when they start on the other side. If the other teams got to the goals before you are done retracting the extension, your design isn’t good anyway.
And the extension have to be check with the entanglement rule anyway. They say they won’t care if you extend the extension the last second anyway.
So, I am still pretty proud of myself thinking outside the box.
*Originally posted by Ken Leung *
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They say they won’t care if you extend the extension the last second anyway.
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Not True. FIRST specifically says it will not take into account the time in which the item is deployed when considering the risk of entanglement. If it poses a risk then it poses a risk.
Not True. FIRST specifically says it will not take into account the time in which the item is deployed when considering the risk of entanglement. If it poses a risk then it poses a risk. **
Sure, that’s why I said, they won’t care if you extend it the first second or the last second. They consider the extension used through out the game. So, your extension better pass that check in the first place. So, if it’s legal anyway, then there won’t be a problem.
My guess is that there will be a bunch of robots that can make it to the goals as fast as any extension on any robot. I also would put money on any extension over about 8 feet being ripped off or bent fairly early in the competition. If we were to see a long extension being extended, I would probably try to get as high of a side load on it as possible to try to get it not to retract correctly by bending it. I am not a mechanical engineer but it will be tough to put a lightweight long lever on your robot and not have it get bent.
I am sure someone this year will try though, so we will see.
Matt
P.S. A strategy would be also to block any moving extension with the robot and any goals in the scoring position which would be eye to eye with the bot.
We are talking a 180 pound goal, you can grab it fast but you will still be limited by your robot’s friction with the ground.
Will it really be quicker? I suppose you could use the sensors to get decent accuracy, but with robots planning to hit > 10 fps, could you really deloy and attach this thing before you could just run out and get it?
Here is what i see happening. You grab onto a goal using this thingy maybe 5 seconds at the most before another robot gets to it. You start pulling it in with your wussy fisherprice motor. Another robot grabs hold and uses it’s dual chalupa motor drive train to overpower you (i know this probably wouldnt happen). Whats more, the robot closest to the goal can ‘twist’ it and break your arm like a twig.
Whatever happens it is going to take more then 5 seconds to move goals around.
Don’t get me wrong, im all for building a robot with no drive train you could just sit there and pull things towards you.
I guess my english skills is really limited… And I have no communication skills what-so-ever…
But what I meant to say, is that this newer version of extension is an upgrade to any existing robots… The robot will still have their 12 motors drive train or whatever, speeding forward at warp 10 for all I care, and still have an extra 5~10 feet reach from the extension to get just a little bit faster to the goals. What happen after that I don’t know. Pulling the goal(s) over to your robot, or pulling the robot over to the goals.
The extension give you an advantage, base on the assumption that the robots move at relatively same speed, with similar traction, and similar weight… Can you see that shortening the distance between you and the goal give you slight advantage over others?
I agree with you Ken, we had a similar idea, but scrapped it becuase our robot could exceed warp 10 which makes us travel backwards in time and we can attach before the match even starts! (Ok that’s a lie but the reason for scrapping the idea was so frustratingly off the wall that the warp 10 is a lot easier to swallow!)
*Originally posted by s_alaniz *
**I agree with you Ken, we had a similar idea, but scrapped it becuase our robot could exceed warp 10 which makes us travel backwards in time and we can attach before the match even starts! (Ok that’s a lie but the reason for scrapping the idea was so frustratingly off the wall that the warp 10 is a lot easier to swallow!)
Best of Luck!
Steve Alaniz **
Luckily, we were able to find an Anti-matter power generator deep in the folds of the small parts catalog, and our Warp drive is a reality!
It ain’t cheap, and it takes a heck of alot of controls code to keep this baby on a leash, but we think it will be worth it!
As to the “entaglement rule”, if the extension is made of something like aluminum tube or another rigid material, I would say it would not pose an entaglement risk. A cable for extending could be inside the tube, or mounted to it.
this has prob been mentioned earlier but OH WELL! ;p
This extension that you speak of- you assume that they are no other robots on the field, and b) that it is extremely strong that it is able to have such an extension w/o being flimsy
There’s going to be a lot of pulling power out there this season.
As for travelling warp 10 and reversing time- well by the time the machine reaches the gravity well of the sun the match will be over. Leave that to “the next generation”.
*Originally posted by Ken Leung *
**I guess my english skills is really limited… And I have no communication skills what-so-ever…
But what I meant to say, is that this newer version of extension is an upgrade to any existing robots… The robot will still have their 12 motors drive train or whatever, speeding forward at warp 10 for all I care, and still have an extra 5~10 feet reach from the extension to get just a little bit faster to the goals. What happen after that I don’t know. Pulling the goal(s) over to your robot, or pulling the robot over to the goals.
The extension give you an advantage, base on the assumption that the robots move at relatively same speed, with similar traction, and similar weight… Can you see that shortening the distance between you and the goal give you slight advantage over others?
I am feeling extremely stupid right now. **
No, i like your idea, i just feel the extra effort towards the drive system would help more in the long run.
Ken I have to congradulate you for thinking out of the box. I too was thinking of a way in which we could utilize an arm to get a slight advantage over the competition but after calculating exactly how fast our robot was capable of moving I decided to scrap the idea. There are too many problems with the raw concept of an arm getting to the goal/goals first. The only advantage it gives you in the end is the ability to latch on first and the real question is if it is worth the extra weight, designing, and risk inorder to latch on a second sooner? I personally believe the cons outweigh the pros by quite a large sum but if someone takes the time to develop the idea I can definitly think of some other stradegies it would be most useful in.
you could just sit there and pull things towards you.
