I’ve seen a lot of cool hooks used for hanging over the last couple and it got me wondering what kind of hooks people are using this year.
If you are using a hook this year:
What kind of hook is it?
What is it made of and how heavy is it?
Did you make it or did you buy it?
How did you make it or where did you buy it?
From current competitions, which kind of hooks have you seen working best?
Does it stay attached to the arm or does it come off when you hang?
If it come unattached how did you do it? Velcro? Shear pin?
My team is using a pirate like single pronged hook made of aluminum on a band saw. It weighs less than 1/2 lb and it comes unattached with either the shear pin or velcro.
we have a grapling hook made out of aluminum. It was waterjetted by one of our big sponsors American Aircraft. It comes unattached by Velcro. The actual part of the arm is like folded in with our multiplier ball grabber then when we are ready, (it is srping loaded) the second portion of the arm swings out, we position the hook, pull away, and then let the winch do the rest.
Our hook is made out of carbon fiber. It slips onto the end of a long piece of fiberglass that we retract once the hook is on the bar. It’s then connected to the robot by a long piece of Spectra. There’s a little catch on the hook that holds it on to the bar. Oh, and we cut it on a band saw.
Our hook was just a piece of 1/4 x 5/8 steel bent with a hammer. It was mounted somewhat oddly - sort of horizontally with the hook part down. It would rub the bar and flip up into position. The cable and tube spring tension was all that held it in place. Crude but effective. We got all 4 robots on the bar in one match.
Carbon Fiber is allowed this year since there’s no ban on exotic materials like previous years. As long as you can account for it in your $3500 limit you can us it.
Our hook is more than just a hook. For those of you who were at the New Jersey regional you know what I’m talking about. It is aluminum tube (1"x1") cut and tig welded together with four 90 degree bends (two per side) that actually make two points to hook on to. Inside these hooks are two rollers, one on each side, connected by a timing belt to each other. This belt and the pulleys ride on the bar. Connected to one of the pulleys is a sprocket and a chain going to another sprocket and a motor on top of the hook. Once the arm is extended with two pneumatic cylinders the hook reaches over the bar and the cylinders are then retracted pulling us up. Now here’s the fun part, when another robot goes for the bar, we just activate the motor and our robot still hooked and hanging can move sideways back and forth across the bar to block the opponents chance of hanging. There’s a photo of our hook in the “Pics from NJ”, the first column second photo down. www.pbase.com/sscamatt/robot...ew jersey day 1
[EDIT] I’m having problems getting the link to work. “jersey day 1” is also part of the link but I can’t get it included. If you go to the “General Forum” then to “Pics from NJ” click the link in the first post our robot hook is shown in the first column second pic down. And if anyone knows how to make the link work please let me know.[EDIT]
I visited J&J on Saturday and saw your rolling hook in action. It was very impressive. One match you kept an opponent from scoring by making them place their hook on top of yours. Not supported by the bar= no score.
Since we had the weight luxury, we went ahead and made our hooks from 1/4 inch thick 1 & 1/4 wide steel barstock. The hooks probably weigh in, at most, about a pound a piece and have 1/8 thick sheet latex glued on to improve grip. They are mounted at the mid-section of our plow/ball grabber with two or three 1/4-20 bolts
We made it by cutting the steel with a reciprocating saw, cold forging it with a hammer, and then radiused it around a pipe. (Yes it was hard to do)
And look, in the background!! Itsa ME!! Before I shaved my beard, and still with hair (which may change by next week cause of a bet I made with the team…)
Edit: A link would be nice to include!
Edit 2: A working link, that is…
We made ours outta steel 3/8" bar stock. We then bent it on the 'ol brake. Looks like it was made by Jesse James himself. It is kinda the shape of the top of a pimp cane.
our 2 hooks ( 6" apart ) are 1/8" alluminum plate. they were originaly 2 1/4" plates, but we reduced it to save weight. we cut them on the band saw i cant believe it actualy holds the weight of the robot, but it does…
Ours is some sort of wall mounted hook made from tubular steel we bought from home depot. It surely weighs under a 6 ounces or so, and it has not come close to thinking about failing yet. It sits in a little holder and comes off when we hang and is attached with 3/16 steel cable (total weight, around 4 ounces.) I think that is KISS.
We had a three prong grappling hook for a while, but at Philly we changed it to a two pronged hook with two little pieces that would go taut when there was tension on the hook. After this hook being knocked out when uncapping the 2X ball, we velcroed it in. Ours is inside our arm and comes out with tension and then the arm goes back down and the winch does the work. We are definitely going back to a 3 prong hook though, it’s stronger and more dependable, but this time we are going to make it out of something stronger. As to materials and weight, I’m not sure anymore.
I’ll try and get a picture later on, but I would like to describe our rather funny hook.
We have bosch extrusion with aluminum gussets (stronger than anything we got on our chassis ) and a piece of surgical tubing ziptied to the interior to increase friction. It’s rather ugly-looking, but it sure is easily replacable.
Also, I like #852’s hook… very, very cool… was that a spare you were carting along when you went up during award ceremonies, or were you winning Motorola Quality for something that accidentally snapped off your bot? (just kidding)
made in machine shop at school. very simple but our over all design was 40lbs over weight… so we changed it to the extruded aluminum. worked very well and now with that we can guard the top plat form and hang at any moment.
Maybe we’ll get out some more pics of our robot soon.
) and a piece of surgical tubing ziptied to the interior to increase friction. It’s rather ugly-looking, but it sure is easily replacable.
(just kidding)