I know this is a little late for this year’s competition, but when we design our robot we go about weight distribution a little differently. Rather than just adding “dead weight”, we try to move components of the robot that we need, the battery is a great way to shift a robots Center of Gravity, as are electrical components, motors (where feasible), and pneumatics (if used). Keep in mind that moving some of this does add weight, usually by adding a few more inches (or feet, as the case may be) of wire.
*Originally posted by Matt McNelley *
**Yes, we do like to move things around don’t we? Does a person attached to the end of the robot count as dead weight too? **
*Originally posted by JVN *
**What if they are bound and gagged?
**
No, that is still considered “live” weight and their sudden movements will make for unstable driving. Of course you can dump them on the field and not be penalized for leaving part of your robot on the field when you KOH. Only thing is they must not touch any bins at the end of the match.
*Originally posted by Al Skierkiewicz *
**No, that is still considered “live” weight and their sudden movements will make for unstable driving. Of course you can dump them on the field and not be penalized for leaving part of your robot on the field when you KOH. Only thing is they must not touch any bins at the end of the match. **
Al,
Surely coming from a team as experienced and well respected as Wildstang, you’ve encountered problems like these before.
Any advice you can share on how to better secure our X-Cat ballast during matches would be much appreciated.
Hopefully I can stop by your pits at nationals, and see your securement method. (Beautiful Robot Al… just beautiful).
We have no research on attachment since we are always looking for ways to dump weight to make inspection. If we are under weight we don’t have enough functionality yet and Raul goes back to burning the midnight oil. That is when we really sweat, because when we are a few onces over he makes us take out wire. We really do prove that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line! Ha!
