With our largest tournament coming up in two weeks (120 Team Tournament @ Warren), I thought I would reveal our 2013-2014 VEX Toss Up robot.
We have already competed at two other competitions:
Jay County-
Tournament Champions
Driver Skills Champions
Programming Skills Champions
Zionsville II-
Tournament Finalists
Excellence Award Winners
Driver Skills Champions
Programming Skills Champions
We have done pretty well so far this season. We hope to continue our success at Warren.
Robot:
Drive-
6 393 Motor Drive
1.6:1 Internally Geared
6 Wheel Tank Drive (outside wheels: omni | inner wheels: traction)
Lift- (it’s so beautiful)
2 393 Motor Lift
1:5 (Torque) Ratio
6-Bar Linkage
Intake-
2 393 Motor Intake
1:1 Internal Gearing
Classic “NZ Roller” w/ Large Ball Top-Side Roller
The lift was put together in one meeting, and hasn’t changed since. It works so good with the rubber bands, and half of the time, the motors don’t even need to work. The Drive is very nice. We are able to push large robots out of our way, and it is very smooth getting over the bump. The intake just got (mostly) perfected after a long 7hr meeting today. It intakes the buckyballs right away, and the large balls get intaked without smashing into a solid object.
Finally, the pictures:
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Our teams goal is to be in the top 30 in both skills challenges by the end of the year. We did great at Jay County, then failed at Zionsville. We should be right around 80 or more at Warren in Driver Skills, and hopefully ~50 in Programming Skills.
Let me know what you think of our robot. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!
Looks nice and clean. It’s good to see that you’re able to operate the lift with only 2 393s. I take it you’re not hanging. Is this something your looking into? Also, why did you decide not to build a strafing base? (either mecanum or x-drive) I suppose it’s because you wanted six motors on the base for the power and can’t power a strafing drive with 6 motors?
Currently, we cannot hang. We can change two gears on our arm then hang. Right now we have other priorities other than hanging, but I have a feeling we will be hanging by February.
We didn’t see a need to strafe. Does anyone? Sure you can do cool manuvers, but wouldn’t you want to have a solid tank drive that can push 20lb steel robots? Also, both the X and H holonomic drives did not work with our design, and those mecanums… I’m sorry, those are way to big.
Happy Thanksgiving Guys!
(Btw, 323X should have a solid bot by warren. They are making some nice changes which should put then in great shape for warren).
Man, with all that nicely done up lexan, I just can’t help but think that you guys should start slapping on the green decals. I’m assuming you are going to be doing that eventually?
Ahh… You are correct We should hopefully have them on by warren.
For your side panels, do you all just print it on paper, or what? We want a crystal clear image for our side panels, and fedex printing doesn’t cut it. I’m guessing you all laminate it correct?
We just print out in colour, glue it onto some card, and laminate. The card makes it all more rigid (as does the laminating), while being much lighter than using polycarbonate.
Here’s what we had for Worlds (Sack Attack) using the above method:
Btw, I like the robot, hope to see it hanging soon!
I have a few questions though,
How did you make your tower rollers so thick and tall without interfering with field perimeter? At our last competition, our rollers were of similar height, size, and I believe angle, yet our rollers still had issues with the wall.
We had trouble at the beginning, but Jeffery (our intake expert) fixed it (somehow) and it barely interferes with the wall. I don’t know what he did, but he made it beautiful We can add the biggest sprocket onto the large ball intake, and we can still intake buckyballs off the wall well.
Our intake did terrible at Zionsville though. Our current intake is 200% better. Our objects should actually stay in our intake this next competition and slide out without getting caught.
Looks like 323z will be a threat again this year. Great Job Jesse!
I do have a question though, i see your motor hangs off the c channel for the intake. Is this to allow some morph room for the big ball? I have a very simialr intake that picks up the big balls very well, but it just looks unhealthy . Did you have this problem when picking up big balls?
( By “unhealthy” I mean it looks like it expands a little more than it should)
If you don’t mind me asking, I have a couple questions about your lift.
How long is the main arm? To around what maximum angle can it reach (if it’s something you actually know/ can measure)? Also, how high is the bottom of the intake at this maximum height?
I ask because you have your bars similarly spaced to what I was thinking for a new design I had in mind (I believe 3-4 holes in between each level).
Fantastic work. One question: I notice the chain between the center and rear wheels hangs down substantially. When crossing the bump, have you snapped that chain?
The longest bar is 17.5". What do you mean “what maximum angle can it reach”? From the ground to the bottom of our tray is ~24.375". Perfect height for scoring the stash If we really wanted to, we could raise our whole entire tower .5" and also extend our lift about 1.25". We could easily reach higher, but we don’t need to.
It is fair to say that the chain has not broken to date, but that does not necessarily mean that it has never come close to breaking. It would be very difficult to measure how much peak load could be placed on it when it hits the bump at speed.
As for your other questions I’ll let Jesse answer because I’m usually a little busy working on our robot to pay much attention to his.](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sblKEGaWWFo)
We should hopefully have them on by warren.
The only time we have practiced skills is when we have tried at competitions 
We will hopefully get to practice before warren.
. Did you have this problem when picking up big balls?
