The top of the piston moves up, pulling that 3 hole wide piece of c channel that’s attached to the slide up. That part is what keeps the expansions from releasing until it pulls up out of the way. It was definitely a difficult thing to get right as we are dealing with a LOT of force. The parts bent a lot if we weren’t careful and it ended up requiring a rubber band assist to help the pistons pull up. However, the slide racks themselves were truly the most difficult part of this robot 
to bad it couldn’t hang 
just kidding. I just find it so unrealistic and impossible to create wall bots. i always imagine offensive strategies and such. but this is outstanding. I cant wait to see what you’ll come up with next!
Yeah, I mean by the end of worlds it only weighed 50 pounds. We should have added more weight. Then it could hang. :3
Wow!!! An absolutely amazing robot!
After seeing this, I have reconsidered the Skyrise idea I had, and I think I am going to consider a defensive design…
Just wondering, why did you use the elastics instead of latex tubing? I have found that latex tubing can be stretched a lot, and doesn’t wear out as quickly.
Thanks! That was part of the goal. I hope to see some more defense bots this year. Just know what you’re in for, this ain’t easy
The problem with the latex tubing was that when stretched to this length, it either snapped, was super thin and about to snap, or untied itself. It was also extremely difficult to change and didn’t have as much power or adjustability as the rubber bands. We moved to rubber bands and were very happy.
This is one of those robots that when your against it you hate it so much but yet you want it to be in elimination with you so badly.
Any video? Or do you know what time interval you were in during the finals stream? Thanks.
Go watch q195 in engineering 
What was the purpose of the long trimmed channel with the rubberband?
My guess would be it provides a point of support so that other robots can not move the barrier.
hm… that makes sense. I’ll just assume that the force of hitting the wall combined with the rubber bands allows it to deploy
OMG. :eek:
Just curious: were you not concerned about teams irreparably damaging your robot? I think there is something about wallbots not being as greatly protected by the rules against intentionally damaging robots. It seems to me that it would have been extremely vulnerable, especially in ways that would have required a lot of time (not to mention money) to fix it.
It’s like my worst nightmare. :o
We had about 4 slides bent during the course of the competition, but this was due to people walking by stepping on them in the pits, not match play. The robot was built strongly so we didn’t have any other issues with destruction.
In response to previous questions, the part at the end of the slides was built to keep the slide from flipping over and getting driven over. It also keeps the slide from being pushed too close to the goal.
It pops out automatically by that rubber band and is held in against the chassis until the slide comes out.
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Did you ever have problems with other teams running over your middle zone robot’s umbilical cord and restricting its movement?
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Did you ever have and issues with having the umbilical cords called for unnecessary risk of entanglement?
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Did the wires in the umbilical cords ever get pinched when you moved or it was run over? Also, did other robots get stuck on the umbilical cords?
If you look closely at one of the original images posted you can see that it is impossible for an opposing robot to drive over the “umbilical cord” because one of there deployments blocks the cord and the scoring part of there robot.
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Nope, the opponents generally left microbot alone but if they had driven over the cord it would have still been able to move… Unless they parked on it, in which case it has done its job of distracting the opponents.
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We were never called for entanglement , pinning, etc.
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The wires in the umbilical cords never had any issues because they were secured very well… With several hundred zip ties :3
Was this massive robot ever questioned on possession? I imagine when you’re occupying that much of the field, and have minibots and tethers and walls everywhere and an alliance partner passing balls over the starting pod thing, it seems like it would be hard to possess less than three buckyballs.
Awesome piece of engineering here, guys. It had a few bugs but the fact that it even existed is amazing.
Got warned twice. Ref was understanding and just pointed out potential possession but it certainly wasn’t match affecting. Never got DQed.
I don’t think you should have been warned. To be trapping buckyballs you had to be touching them: