With the release of a game teaser for the 2024 FRC season. There has been some talk on my team about having the end game be climbing stairs, and I am wondering what other people think. Even if that is not true feel free to share your stair climbing robot ideas!
So things to note are that Dean Kamen made a stair climbing robot see here in this interview called the iBot.
I also heard from a teammate that Dean hinted at the Rockwell Automation Conference during his keynote speech this past week. But that could be some confirmation bias and/or just my misunderstanding.
I have a few ideas of things so far, but I will post them in a bit to see what other people think first.
If people want to CAD some designs here are some specs to use:
8in height steps (generally used for stage steps)
10in depth steps (general spec)
6 steps (total 48in) (just an arbitrary number that makes the dimensions easy)
When I designed this, I assumed it would be 3 12in high stairs, but it’s basically a inner rail for the front and back swerve modules to be actuated by something like a Lead Screw. (working like the stilt climbers from 2019) Works? maybe. Practical? not really. I made it off of a challenge from a friend.
The “hab” in 2019 is probably the closest thing to stairs we’ve had before.
I was a fan of “wheelie” climbing back then and still am. We used our intake to lift the front of the robot so the front wheels engaged with the next step. Then deployed a pneumatic lifter in the rear that had roller wheels, and drove with our front wheels until the rear wheels hit the step. Can’t find the CAD…
Sorry, Zook, I’m gonna pull my experience on ya.
The game is 2004. Literal stairs on the field, but two tall steps. I can think of ONE team that took the 2" each stairs (190, built narrow to do that) but an awful lot of teams went for the 6" step up to the lower platform (and not a few did the second 6" step to the upper platform). Triwheels, sloped frame bottoms, large wheels, ignoring the stairs and just going for the bar (10’ off the floor), elevating modules, and there might have even been one or two who tried the “climb by yeet” to varying degrees of pain.
If you want FRC stair-climbing robots, 2004 is probably your best bet. 2nd best, 1999 (but photos are hard to come by).
For 2004, we just had a couple big wheels (unpowered) that tilted you up and then bigger go kart slicks drive wheels (4) to drive up the steps.
Here are some match videos, not sure if there are any real modern solutions considering bumper concerns.
edit: 971 has some tread climber in match 56. Didn’t really see what 68 or 341 used, unfortunately. Lots just try to grab from lower. Big wheels also were popular.
edit 2: BTW our robot that year Oscar (the Grouch – named for the trash can lid suction cup) is my favorite robot we’ve ever built. It is just absolutely a marvel of engineering for that game and time and was such a fun build.
it does look a LOT faster than all the other designs that have been sent, but won’t work for more than one stair in a row
however I certainly was thinking about doing something like that
Wonder if something like 2046’s side climb from this year would work. Depends a lot on CG and how much grip you can get only contacting the corner of each stair. Also you need some way to get yourself back parallel to the ground after you reach the top. Smart CG planning might work for this, or maybe another mini-mechanism to tip the bot forward.