We received some requests to explain some of the design features on our Round Up robot “Sheila.” We apologize for being so late, but most of our team members have been involved in many other activities this summer and we are just now getting back to work in our robotic’s club. We have put together two videos; one showing our season in summary and the other explaining our over the back swing arms and intake system. The explanation video answers some of the questions directed toward us and we hope this explains how we designed these features sufficiently. If anyone has further questions, let us know and we would be happy to explain further. We wish everyone a fun and challenging new “Gateway” season.
this is a great robot! i remember getting beat by you guys in semi-finals at the wildstang competition. im excited to see what you guys come up with this year!!
You guys rock for letting us use that upside down screen cleaner, to cool our motors. And your guys robot is pretty amazing and i hope you guys come up with something even cooler for gateway. See you at worlds :).
We love this robot! It has so many great features that are within reach of our limited skills (e.g. no one on our team has been able to build a functional continuous rigging multi-stage linear slide like 1103’s). Thanks for the advance sharing, too.
I’m curious about your guys’ low goal aligners. They use pneumatics right?
My team wants to do something like this for gateway but I’m not exactly sure how haha.
Can you guys put up pictures or a up close video? I need something to base our goal aligner idea off of. Also did you guys use single or double acting pistons for the goal aligner?
Thank you very much.
I am not on the team so i can not give you an official understanding of their low post allignment system, but from the looks of it, i am guessing it uses the same type of system a boomlift uses. they use hydraulics but here is a pic
[ATTACH]4480[/ATTACH]Our low post alignment device did use pneumatics. We worked hard on the bracket and engaging mechanism because for Round UP, we wanted to not only line the score post up with our tube basket to score the tubes faster, but it also served to stabilize our robot when we went over the back to unload opponents tubes after de-scoring them. That is how we could take 12 tubes over the back without tipping. Each curved bracket was activated by a single action cylinder connected in the center of our robot to a linkage system which on each side of the robot. This linkage system converted the linear action of the pneumatic cylinder to a rotational action which would rotate the brackets down and into scoring position. The brackets were pretensioned to snap back with elastic tubing when the pneumatic cylinders were disengaged. We did that so that if we lost the pneumatics or got low on air, the default position would be up so we could still load tubes and score tubes, just not as fast. We could not load tubes in the front section of our robot when our alignment brackets were down. I don’t believe we have a photo of the entire linage system and can no longer get one because Sheila has been dismantled to make way for our gateway robot. It would be pretty hard to describe in detail, so all I can do is tell you to just prototype different systems for the linkage for a modified alignment device for gateway. I hope this helps, and I would be happy to try to ans. any more questions if you have them. I will post an old version of the linkage, but this was before pneumatics and the curved brackets so it isn’t the best. I hope this photo helps more than confuses the issue. Let me know if I can be of more help.
Actually, we had the pistons firing out. They were fashioned from the middle so they defaulted down (which was annoying). There are probably better ways to do it because we were limited by our small space to work with.
If you watch the explanation video, pay attention to the pneumatic’s shown between 1:14 and 1:34 on the video. You can see how they are mounted in the middle. It is hard to see the other end of the cylinder, but it is connected to a one hole plate offset above a bearing. When the cylinder activates, it rotates about the bearing which converts the lateral movement of the cylinder to a rotational movement, which then causes the guide plates to rotate up or down. I hope this helps.
to make way for our gateway robot. It would be pretty hard to describe in detail, so all I can do is tell you to just prototype different systems for the linkage for a modified alignment device for gateway. I hope this helps, and I would be happy to try to ans. any more questions if you have them. I will post an old version of the linkage, but this was before pneumatics and the curved brackets so it isn’t the best. I hope this photo helps more than confuses the issue. Let me know if I can be of more help.