I don’t yet have a video of our kicker. But it can kick across the field, and is powered using pneumatics. If there’s enough demand I’ll find and post a video of it working too.
Have you tried the roll cage our with bumpers on? I’m not sure, but you may find that the bumpers increase the tendency to stop on your side in the same way you did once in the video.
Roll cage shows promise, congrats. You’ll want to put full bumpers on it ASAP if you haven’t already and continue the bump testing. With a front and rear bumper it may, or may not, react the same way. In fact, I’m not sure there’s a way to legally mount bumpers to that chassis as it is. If you haven’t yet considered it, you need to look at those rules closely.
It looked like with proper CG placement (and the CRUSH factor on the bumpers), they’d still be able to finish the roll. Try stealing bumpers from an old robot and putting them on for testing, then let us know if it still works.
HELLO from the NORTH EAST ::safety::
Liked the idea looks great bumpers will tell if this will still work. Loved it keep going time is ticking!!! ::ouch::
GOOD LUCK in 2010. see ya sooooon
MOE
We’ve spent a while considering what happens when you add bumpers, and “I like the idea, but what about bumpers?” has been our biggest problem when pitching the idea of a roll cage internally.
Here’s what we think:
Our CG is above (when the robot is upside down) the axis of rotation, so we will never be stuck on our top, we will always roll to one side.
When getting caught by the bumpers there are two different problems.
2a. You can get stuck with one set of wheels and the bumper on the ground. Just drive with your wheels and you’ll be fine (Our CG will be low enough to give the wheels enough traction in this position)
2b. You can get stuck with the bumper and the roll cage on the ground.
We have an arm on one side of our robot that can put us into position 2a.
If we get into position 2b on the arm-less side of our robot there are only 3 ways to get out.
4a. Train our drivers to only go up the bump forwards and not backwards, so there is no chance of being on the wrong side.
4b. Have an alliance member push us over (Which will take very little energy) The only problem being they might be hesitant to go over the bump themselves to come and save us, and they’re not allowed to come into the far zone if that’s where we flip.
4c. Put our CG far enough forward that we always roll back to our arm side. A potential problem being we could roll back onto the bump and be back in situation 4b. Putting it too far forward also increases the chance of rolling when going over a bump to 100%.
There are few enough problems with the design to make the benefits worth going for. So we’ve chosen that this will definitely be part of our design. (It also stops balls from getting stuck on us.)
I was a little concerned about safety in the video about the lifter. Doing anything dealing with robotics is dangerous, and requires the correct PPE. I wouldn’t want to see anyone get hurt. ::safety::
As for the design behind the robot, that is amazing, and I can’t wait till you guys compete and the videos on TBA.
Could you make an expanding roll cage for the possibilty of righting yourself in position 2b on the bad side? extending outside bumpers is legal if upside-down
That is true–under <G30>, you can expand outside your bumper perimeter up to your Finale Configuration if you are trying to right yourself. It shouldn’t be too hard to design in something to shoot out of the “roll” cage and flip you upright.
