Part 1: If you’ve actually used the pneumatic parts, this thread is for you. Tell us about what you built, how you built it, why you built it and how it worked out. (This gives you the street creds to post the second part)
Part 2: How would you like to see the rules change for robot pneumatics? Does the current motor differential work for you? Would you like to see more of an offset to allow you a greater gap so you can show your skills? Should 100% pneumatic robots be given a 75% scoring advantage at the start of the match?
Part 3: Upgrades to existing parts / rules? Would you like to see extra air tanks added? Now that the system supports heavy duty motors, a small compressor to keep the flows up?
I came from an FRC team that did amazing things with pneumatic parts, Double acting cylinders, two cylinders on the same axis (ie back to back 4" throws would let you move 0" - 4" and 8", so flexibility. Linkages became interesting when you have linear motion to start with. I always keep hoping VEX would come out with a linear motor. (Linear Servo Actuator L16-R 140 mm Stroke 35:1 6v - AndyMark, Inc) or motors with lead screws we could use without lots of machining.
Anyway, if compressed air is your skill, tell us all abut it.
I’ve never actually used pneumatics on a competitive robot, even though I have access to it. Imo the 2 motor cost is way too expensive. You get a lot more power out of 2 v5 motors than you do out of pneumatics. If the price was lowered to only one motor, I think you’d see pneumatics actually get used. I personally would love to see that changed, because I’ve always wanted to use pneumatics but never could bring myself to make that 2 motor sacrifice.
I’ve used pneumatics a few times and while I think that they can be useful they are also very annoying if they are used on main subsystems on your robot. This is because they will run out of air way before the batteries die, making autons and driver practice more tedious then it should be. I also think that the current limit of 8 V5 motors is extremely overpowered for vex fields and do not think they should ever increase this motor limit despite it allowing more innovative subsystems. 1 change that I think would be cool to see is them making a weaker motor and allowing the trade in of 2 v5 motors for 3-4 weaker motors rather than pneumatics.
I have used pneumatics to quickly close our claw in Starstruck and for our first competition during In The Zone, we had a pneumatic mobile goal lift. Although the use of pneumatics hasn’t been the most efficient, I know that with two tanks, you might get the use of one subsystem for an entire match.
I believe that their is a reason that across the last two seasons of VEX, I’ve only seen one team use pneumatics, and it was for an adjustable hood for their flywheel during Turning Point, and they used the legacy motors. With the power of the V5, it is very hard to give up two motors to have only two tanks of pneumatics. I don’t agree at all with a scoring advantage boost for a full pneumatic robot; the closest parallel I can think of is Son of Whyachi in Battlebots abusing the definition of a “walker” to have an extra 100 pounds on their robot.
Personally, I would be fine with changing the rules so that a V5 robot can give up either one motor for two tanks or two motors for four tanks. I feel that two tanks for one motor is about right in general usefulness, but I feel that unlimited tanks could lead to many problems. Although, I’d like to know the rationale for the pneumatic tank limit to begin with; I know that during Toss Up, the rule was unlimited, but Skyrise introduced the 2 tank limit, specifically if it was a safety issue or a game balance issue.
I think using pneumatics for small unique subsystems is cool but it definitely is a pain to use for major subsystems of the robot. If vex were to create a smaller less powerful version of the v5 motor i think it would allow teams to create more subsystems that don’t require a lot of power. However I think this can be achieved with the standard v5 motor through stuff like ratchets.
That depends on how you set things up, there are components called pressure regulators that vary the amount of air that goes into the piston per actuation, with the regulator set to lower pressure (i.e., less air going into the cylinder) you get more actuations out of a full tank but each actuation exerts less force.
So I would love to see the limit lessened and I like the idea of a weaker motor kind of like the old servos with the cortex and I think that we should be allowed more air reservoirs i’m not sure why pneumatics are so heavily regulated in high school. They are a very useful tool that I wish more teams could use. They definitely make the game more interesting and finding creative ways to use them is a lot of fun. I do agree that 8 V5 motors plus pneumatics is a little strong and maybe 6 V5 + 2 weak V5 and pneumatics could be a comprise.
