The goals
Hang on the bar
Do this in 10s or less
Fit on 14in tall robot
Proposed solution
Take two small Nerf (or similar) guns, and attach grappling hooks and steel cable. Hard mount these to your frame at the corners. At the start of endgame fire both dart guns at the bar. Then use 2 CIMs to winch yourself up 22-28in and hang there.
Does any one see any problems related to legality or technical implementation?
(Assuming the hooks stay within 15ins of the frame, and are throw at non lethal velocities)
Center of gravity issues and the changing of the plane of your 15" rule. If your frame where to change it’s orientation you would violate the 15" and incur a penalty.
We had also considered a system like this, the problem with shooting darts up is that they are unreliable. Instead we are considering a telescoping arm that can just drag a hook up there. The arm doesn’t have to be strong since it never takes more than the hook’s force. Then in order to stay perpendicular to the wall we are going to mount the cable to the back of the frame as well as the motor.
We haven’t been able to test this yet as it is the last thing we would put on our robot given the time. I would recommend that you don’t focus on the lifting until you have everything else perfect. The lifting is one of the most difficult challenges and has a very small benefit. I mean you get 10 extra points for adding an entire new subsystem.
Either way good luck with this, it will be challenging.
The other thing is, there is no possible way to get a nerf gun to fire a dart that heavy more than 5 ft (unless you make something known as a pumpsnap)
That is what I was thinking about, with all that added weight from a hook you won’t be very accurate and you will suffer from too little power. 5 feet may be good enough to reach the bar, but when I calculated this I couldn’t even get that high.
That is basically what we have. We have a solid working shooter right now so we developed a climber. Should be done tomorrow. We have 3 telescoping PVC pipes connected with surgical tubing and para cord that get winched up extended the hooks to the bar. The hooks are then attached to a separate winch with some pulleys to balance the weight. I do not know how well or even if its going to work but I should be able to tell you tomorrow.
