Does anyone have an idea how to simulate the brushes that hold the Hatch Panels in the loading station?
It seems like almost every Hatch Panels intake must overcome these brushes
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The product is Frost-King C35PH cut into three 6" segments.
It is shown in drawing GE-19190 and assembled on the Left (GE-19156) and Right (GE-19137) Loading Stations as shown in the Game Specific Field Drawings.
[The drawings above may need to be unencrypted using the game code $Robots&in#SPACE!! and software such as 7-Zip for Windows or iZip for Mac.]
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In the U.S., run down to Home Depot and buy the part. OBTW, needing this part for your field elements was revealed a couple of weeks ago in a blog.
The mandated brush material has the property that the two sides are not the same. On one side, the plastic mounting flange is essentially flush with the bristles. On the other side, there is a lip where the flange meets the bristles. Looking carefully at all of the field drawings (both the real field and the plywood mockups) I can’t find a closeup that shows clearly which side of the flange faces toward the Loading Station. This is an important detail, because mounting the flange with the lip side toward the Loading Station puts the lip in front of the edges of the hatch panel in two places, making it difficult or impossible to pull the hatch panel straight off of the Loading Station (i.e. without first lifting it up slightly). Mounting it with the lip away from the Loading Station allows the hatch panel to be pulled straight back through the bristles.
Does anyone know which way the brush material is supposed to be mounted?
Looks like the flange faces the wall.
Here is a close-up from behind the loading station.
Here’s the robot side close-up
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The odds of that working, might depend on where in the US you live.
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I checked when the pre-kickoff parts list came out, and at the Slidell HD had it in stock. Not like the Florida peninsula or Hawaii, but we’re no colder than most of the U.S., including Houston (where OP is apparently located). I even seem to recall some questions in the HD Q&A about the part which WERE from southern Florida, though they were asking how good this was at keeping bugs and sand out…
Sadly not available in our location…
But then, you can buy pool noodles in February.
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strangely pool noodles are hard to find, I suppose the visitors are constantly restocking… and if they are in stock they are most of the time quite undersized…
Price of paradise I am willing to pay.
=D
And international teams? The nearest home depot is only a short 12 hour flight away, and they don’t ship internationally.
I thought FIRST was trying to design games so that international teams have access to the game pieces and important field parts. We payed about $700 for 5 cargo and 5 hatch covers from AM and Vex. From what I can tell, buying the brushes aren’t even an option.
Thanks to Mark for his fast and informative reply. On closer examination, the answer seems clear: when dropped into place in the Loading Station, the the hatch panel does NOT rest on the surfaces where the three brushes are mounted. Instead it is located on one side by the separate round stop (part #26, McMaster-Carr rubber bumper) and on the other side by the rounded corner of the L-shaped spacer (part #16). (Part numbers from Reduced Field Drawings.) These two locators insure that the hatch panel does not drop down far enough to get hung up on the brush flanges. Instead, it is retained only by the bristles and can easily be pulled straight off of the front of the Loading Station. Problem solved.