I promised to reveal my elevation mechanism today, but unfortunately I left my camera at school, so I only have this video I had unlisted from Oct. 1. I will have more footage up as well as a video of 2R + 2Z’s practice match exceeding 200 points, and unnoficial(kinda sketch) of 300+ points on friday.
I got this idea about a week shortly after the game came out, so there are much better ways to elevate now. I just went with it and started building mid September. It uses 2 motors and 4 pistons.
For compatability I plan on screwing in standoffs with plates on top of them to my ally robots before the match so that they can support me. This will require some prep time but assures that I can high elevate every match. Of course my sister teams like 2Z have permanent scaffolds on their robot dedicated to 2R.
Another interesting thing is the fact that ramp robots are inherintly compatable with this method of elevation, despite my drive train having virtually zero clearance.
But is it difficult for your alliance to drive the robot underneath? It looks like it take a bit of maneuvering to get to the right spot and also not to hit against the 2 racks (or supporting stands) of your robot.
Yeah, thats the main downside with this design, its not easy for your average robot to get under. With the sister teams prep has made it so that we can do the whole thing in around 20 seconds including lifting up and down.
The other negative to this design is that it’s not exactly as fast as other methods and it takes up 2 motors.
We also had a linear slide lift in the works where we went on top of other robots if you look closely at our old videos, but this ones looks to work more consistently lol. One reason why we ended up scraping it was that we thought about having to rely on the many varying robots’ tops to be able to support our robot.
Wow, this is quite cool I see how you can manipulate ‘infinite weight’ Anyway compatibility with robots is going to be a big issue, only robots with flat tops are really going to work, the major downside of this design.
This is really cool! Our team started on this idea, but we decided against it. To solve the problem of our alliance partner hitting the racks holding up our robot, we were going to have our drive train expand, like 127C.
Today we had a Competition in Vancouver BC, Canada, and we were fortunate enough to have 2R say yes when we ask them to join our alliance. They were able to successfully high lift every time in about 20 seconds with no failures.
Unfortunately we were competing against the robot with the highest robot skills and programing skills in the world, so even with the high lift, we couldn’t score high enough.
Have you had any experiences of robots hitting your ‘stands’. I can imagine its probably not the greatest for you robot falling down onto the tile due to an error while driving
But it got me thinking that you have to lift your centre of gravity 18" this way. If you watch a high jumper cross the bar you’ll note that they don’t lift their centre of gravity six feet in the air… their CoG only moves up a few feet. It is the rotation of their body about their centre of gravity that allows them clear such heights.
You might be able to find ways to use rotation, as well as translation, to your advantage. Or you might not… I’m always happy to make suggestions for things I don’t have to build!
The robot that supported 2R actually didnt even have a flat top to start with we quickly fastned a scaffold on top of them before eliminations.
The biggest downside is actually the fact that it is easy for the alliance partner to tip the elevated robot. Team 2Z that had a similar elevator mech but just shorter for 17" of height attempted an elevate in qualifications, but tipped over since the ally robot accidentally ran into one of the stilts. In addition there are now other methods that are faster as well as less resource demanding in terms of pneumatics and motors.
I see how you can manipulate ‘infinite weight’ 
Anyway compatibility with robots is going to be a big issue, only robots with flat tops are really going to work, the major downside of this design.