Also please upvote this on Reddit, thanks!
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I think you should all be standing much further away from that.
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This video was after 3 days of continuous testing, and it never missed, so it’s not as big of a safety hazard as you might think 
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It looks cool but it feels like click-bait because it doesn’t climb?
You should also add the 2nd bar that exists on the real field. You may need adjust length of the rope.
The space shuttles underwent many more days of testing than this thing 
. Safety wire of some sort could easily assuage any off-balance issues though.
Haha, I like it.
I assume the rope you’re shooting will be attached to another rope that gets winched in by the robot. That second cable will add weight and drag to the system, so you should definitely test with that attached. It will also act as a safety feature to avoid misfires and allow you to see how much force your connection to the rung can hold.
Also, I’ll second @JesseK’s suggestion to add the second horizontal bar on the switch. That will probably change how well the first rope wraps around the bar.
How well does that work when you change the position of the launcher?
Considering the motions made by your mechanism, how will you prove to the Robot Inspector that you will not violate R4. My previous question may have some bearing on this.
Also if you miss how do you know you won’t violate the 12’’ extension rule (I forget if that is R4)
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So there is going to be a string to winch up on, I’ll update this in a couple days or so once I get a winch working, also I calculated for the second bar, in short the rope can be 24 inches and I made it 18 for half a foot of leeway. And the safety wire could be a good about but idk, I am now testing with a rope attached, and it still works flawlessly.
Thanks!
Yes of course! And for the secondary bar mathmaticaly it works out, we’ll see. And as for the winch cable, testing is going on right now with the cable attached, and it seems to be working great! Still working out some links lol.
It has an internal dual lock, the first lock has to disengage before the secondary lock can release the mechanism, I took a look at the potential energy rules. Thx!
So that’s the big problem, if you completely miss there is a very very very very small chance it will shoot past you frame perimeter because the cable is 18 inches wide allowing it to stay within R4 and if you knick the bar it should just fall back down in to the robot once the winch cable runs out.
Are you able to attempt multiple shots, or if you miss the first shot do you have to settle for parking?
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R4 is not about stored energy.
This is a cool design, but you should take a look at 118’s robot during 2016 if you haven’t already. They used a grappling hook climbing mechanism and they probably only climed in about 10% of their matches in 2016. When it worked, it worked really really well, but it wasn’t reliable. They are one of the top FRC teams in the world, and they struggled to pull it off due to positioning. If you can position your robot well in matches, you can totally keep this design, but this design will be a nightmare if you can’t position the climb underneath the bar properly.
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A bolas-like device may not work the same if it is anchored to another rope. Suggest trying with a rope capable of holding up a robot before going all-in.
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No, you can’t, it’s a one and done
I was referring to a different section not r4.
I totally agree, this is sort of my side project just for the meme you could say, it’ll be fun!