Some people on the forums have expressed interest in a quick reveal of our lifting mechanism so here it goes!
Specs:
• 4 pistons total cause the ramp to picot and deploy with a latching mechanism
-2 single acting and 2 double acting pistons
• Elastic expansion and deployment in less than a second
• 5- 10 second elevation
• 26 degree angle ramp
• 4 stage linear slides expanded by rubber bands
• High lift 14 inches
• Lifts up to a 20 pound robot with elastic and pneumatic assist
Today we competed in the Lambert competition in Suwanee, Georgia and scored a total of 229 points in a qualification match with 675B and used the ramp to gain an extra 50 points (I wish I had a video of the match). Lambert Invitational : Robot Events
I am posting pictures and a video of the ramp in action.
Also, the robot pictured is not our current robot due to us not wanting to reveal the full robot at this time but the lift concept is the same on our current robot. The videos are of our competition robot as well as our summer robot.
Please let me know if there are any questions and I will be happy to answer them!
Have any robots had issues driving up your lift ( even at 26 degrees ) and do you use the weight of the robot to assist pushing the platform up (along with the pneumatic assist and rubber bands ) and have you had any issues fitting it all in the expanding zone?
If a robot is too low to the ground, their drive will scrape but if the robot is 0.5 inches above the ground with sufficient motor power they have no problem getting up the ramp.
and yes we use the weight of the other robot to also help level the ramp when the robot gets to the top.
It all fits in the expanding zone and now we back into the corner to get a larger area to expand in to ensure that we are in the zone. This was the smallest angle that we could get while still being in the expansion area.
That picture is from our launcher over the summer so we have changed it since then and we have found that larger wheels provide more speed for farther launches.
what happens if the robots drive is not the exact same width as your ramp, do you have plans to add plates or something to let teams with different sized drives get up?
the angle of the ramp is as low as possible without expanding out of the lifting area.
We have plans for a new lift that will accommodate any size robot but we chose this width for our first design because most competition robots tend to be full size.
Have you had any instances of opposition alliance robots parking at the bottom of your ramp (just outside of the elevation zone), so blocking access of your partner to climb the ramp?
I have seen this happen. This was a very tricky situation to ref, as, at one point, there was contact between the blocking robot and the robot attempting to climb, while the climber was touching it’s ramp bot partner. The blocking robot remained outside the elevation zone (just) and the contact was initiated by the robot trying to climb the ramp (the blocking robot was stationary (only just(I think)) when the contact first occurred(possibly)). The elevation was unsuccessful.
The motto is, you need to be very brave (or slightly crazy) to play defense anywhere near the opposition zones or near your own zones in this game. My motto on reffing is, if there is some rule interpretation causing serious deliberation/doubt over whether it is a DQ or not, then it is not.
We were able to get up the ramp quickly and efficiently with motors geared to high speed (after lifting our robot’s chassis half an inch.) I’m pretty sure any full size robot can make it up 675E’s ramp as long as their robot is not sitting too low.
We did not have that issue during our first competition yesterday, however we do anticipate defense to be a problem in future competitions due to the high amount of defense being played against us while shooting in the finals. I’m sure it will be the same with the ramp eventually.
lol…my team had never fully realized the potential impact of defensive play till we had to do that yesterday. Definitely made for an interesting experience
We as a team were wondering, could your robot go up a ramp similar to your own? Also, I saw that your intake had motors marked with turbo (or so I think). Did you have any problems with the intake such as it being too fast, etc?
We are about to start working on our November/December rebuild and plan on making a lifting mechanism similar to your’s.
Yes we can go up a ramp similar to our own but it would have to be narrower to fit our drive width. The ramp is also easily removable as we did during elimination matches to reduce weight if it is not used. We made our drive narrower to fit on other style ramps if we were to come across them.
And we have not had any problems with our intake being too fast.
Good seeing you yesterday, and congrats on your early season win. Great robot, and glad you qualified for state already, Leonidas is looking forward to slaying the dragon on the 24th lol. Once again Great Victory.
I don’t think that anyone won a state spot at the competition this weekend (I am hoping that we are wrong.) The website is only showing spots won for the US Championship. This is also being shown for the Collins Hill High VEX VRC Fall Qualifier, but I wouldn’t know if this is normal or not because last year I never kept up with whether or not a competition won our team a state spot or a US Opener spot.
Edit: After looking at the VEX Halloween Spooktacular State Qualifier, it also only shows that the awards are for the US Championship, so I am assuming that our mentor told our team wrong about the state spots at the previous competition.](Collins Hill High VEX VRC Fall Qualifier : Robot Events)
All local tournaments should qualify the winning alliance, design, and excellence winners. I think it is just an error right now with posting the tournament on robot events. Hopefully it will be updated with the correct information on registering for state soon. I think it may be because the GA State competition was not posted at the time that these tournaments were created on robot events.
Once again Great Victory.