Hey guys, the school I’m mentoring is having a problem with their auto loaders. The loaders seem to break occasionally when the robots go to pick up the skyrise sections. They seem to snap in two any one else having this problem?
The autoloaders are not a solid circle holder. There is a place where it’s loose and can slide around, so the skyrise section can be put in and taken out with ease. During a regular match, this shouldn’t be screwed together. It will ‘split’ in two during a match.
Unless you mean it’s actually breaking and cracking the plastic. This shouldn’t happen.
Did you mean split in a catastrophic you broke the field sense or like was described above where it flexes outwards?
I worry that the rings will get a bit too flexed over the season and when you go to worlds with a new set of rings, it will be waaay tight and your robot won’t work as well.
For example, Gateway elements a few years ago had this where the elements at worlds were all shiny new out of box versus the heavily loved game elements that had been gently loved over the months of abuse. Slip slidin away…
So what happened the first time one of the robots did a 360 and clipped the auto loader which caused it to snap. The second time I believe it snapped because they were being too rough.
Earlier in the season VEX said that they had tested the autoloaders and they were strong enough (which was also said about big balls…), but I actually don’t see these breaking under normal use.
However, VEX said to contact them if they break as they would be replaced under warranty. The best option though will be to be more careful when driving.
Thanks Kevin that’s what we told the teams to be more careful but well see as the time goes by. They aren’t screwed together too if that makes a difference on whether they break or not.
They should not be screwed together, but I haven’t tried whether using a screw that is not fully tightened makes them more secure but doesn’t affect the tightness on the sections.
Oh and those new clean bags at World’s in Sack Attack. We had to make a few adjustments early on. My cubes are already beaten up and cracked, but I never thought about the auto loader. Thankfully I have the box of pieces I picked up in Anaheim still tucked away.