Thank you, and I will. The goal here was just to have enough to start up the team and order some preliminary parts just so that we can actually have a robot. I’m fully expecting to have to pay for some other things, out of pocket, but with the main stuff out of the way I’m hoping that won’t be as much of an issue.
Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely look into this! Seems like a great opportunity.
The ‘towers’ are the part that connects the robot’s base to its lift. They’re the pieces of metal that stick up vertically on which the bars of the lift are attached. Some teams choose to have two of these towers on each side of their lift for more support, but most teams have realized this late into the season that a second tower is rather unnecessary given the fact that there is little to no stress being put on our lifts this year.
Some teams have actually chosen to do a ‘floating tower’ setup, where there is only one tower connected to the base, but there is a small piece of metal where the second tower would normally be. This keeps the benefit of added stability and less slop, while also saving the weight that a second tower would normally add. Personally, I’m a big fan of the floating tower, but a lot of teams have been extremely successful with just one tower, so I’d say either of the two will work well.
I don’t have any pictures of my robot’s towers right now, but I’m sure some others can point you in the direction of some examples.