What actually limits the TRAP flap opening distance?

We are working on getting our stage/trap to behave as close as possible to the actual field. For those who have also pursued this have you determined what the flap actually hits first…the 1/4" wide upright piece or the 1/8" wide piece across the entire trap opening? The images below are looking down at the two from different angles. Looks to me like the 1/8" wide poly spanning the opening comes into play first?

1 Like

Note the the chute side “stopper” has a vertical surface.

1 Like

This is a snip from the OnShape model. Looks like it will hit the back wall and vertical tab on the side wall about the same time.

3 Likes

Here I extended the path of the back panel based on the slot in the chute side. Looks like the back comes into play first based on this ( the red line is not to the actual height of the back panel - just there to show the angle.)

1 Like

The truss.

We don’t have the ears on our trap to stop it opening, but the door hits the truss very quickly.

1 Like

By “The Truss” do you mean the horizontal aluminum tube to which the trap flap is mounted? If so, our finding is the the limit imposed by the chute are more troublesome.

1 Like


If you look at Beyonce here, you can see how close the doors are to the lighting truss used for the structure of the stage.

What you are seeing there is truss that’s the same dimensionally as what FIRST is using, the same model Cheese-borough FIRST uses, scavenged 1.75" square tubing from previous FIRST fields, and the AndyMark stage trap kit.

(Beyonce is the stage face that faces the scoring table on the red side. We named them all to make it easier to remember which panel goes on which side. The blue stage is Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, and Rick Astley. The red stage is Björk, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce.)

3 Likes

Thanks Doug. Let me see if I understand what you are saying: Here is a sort-of top-down view. You say that the read arrow shows where the flap will hit the truss before the yellow arrow area where the flap would hit the stop?

Here’s a video walkthrough that shows these details.

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.