This year I didn’t get the chance to walk the pits and really admire all the hard work that everyone put into their robots. I love asking questions and learning from everyone, so I ask:
What is one things you learned from chatting with teams about their robot, in respect to building and design.
Maybe it’s how a bearing hole was drilled, bumper mounting techniques, a McMaster carr part,
Something that you will take with you going forward into next year.
7 Likes
Walking the pits and talking to teams about what creative or innovative solutions they have for building robots is always one of my favorite things about champs. I always seem to learn something from 3641 - The Flying Toasters, especially on their machining techniques. I spent so long in 2056’s pit in 2019 that I probably owe property taxes in Canada (I’m still angry how simple and effective their Level 3 HAB climb was compared to what we tried to build).
But if I had to pick one brilliant solution I saw this year that I hadn’t thought of before it was the way 67 HOT attached their big shoulder sprocket to their rotoclimb arm. This is a recurring issue we’ve seen before, where trying to transfer torque from a beefy gearbox reduction to a long arm can plow through the metal on the arm if you’re not careful. Their solution was to use a half-inch rod material was tangent to the inner wall of their rotoclimber arm. This seems like a much simpler solution than adding reinforcing material to structure of the arm where torque is transferred. I’m not sure this picture will do it justice, but it’s what I took to help me remember X many years from now the next time we need a high-torque arm.
12 Likes
Not specifically from champs, but these are from this season.
Bearing retainer for when you can’t have the rivets right next to the bearing flange due to what is on the back side of the plate.
Square nuts and tight pockets so you don’t have to use 90* brackets to attach two perpendicular plates. This goes well with tab and slot construction.
I have seen 67 do this multiple times for 90* power transfer, but this is the first time seeing it used for a full 180*. This is 33 fyi.
29 Likes
Interesting. I’ve seen this is polycord, but never with a timing belt. I’m curious how they determined the center distance belt length. Can it be calculated or do you just iterate through different tooth counts until it is right?
3 Likes
Curious about the method for getting the tooth count/center distance correct too. We did something very similar on our 2020 robot, but went about it through trial and error.
1 Like
We did this on the 2020 intake using a pin separator like what 33 is doing. Center to center was trial and error.
2771 did it on their shooter with larger belts an NO pin separator with no reported issues.
1 Like
I wonder if they had any jumping issues with that belt, that pin might also work as a tensioner to make the center to center easier