My team wants to build some Endgame Expansion using Pneumatics. The problem is we are a middle school and don’t really know a whole lot about Pneumatics and was wondering if anybody has any ideas/concepts. Thanks 7865B
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Welcome to VEX forums!
As a middle school coach, I usually have my teams avoid putting technologies on their robots they are not comfortable with until they prototype off their robots.
As for specific use of pneumatics for this game, I am assuming you are looking for a mechanism that will release a stored energy mechanism. If you are not using your 8 motor limit, is there a way you could accomplish releasing your endgame expansion without pneumatics?
At events we have seen a lot of premature release of endgame expansion because pneumatics structure were easy to release through normal game play. To be clear, premature expansions were not just limited to robots with pneumatics… However, with a motor solution there are solid ways to avoid this.
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Do you have a code yet?
Our team is also middle school and we don’t use pneumatics for our endgame expansion. Another option (what we are using) is basically a slip-gear catapult using drive shaft bar locks to connect a c-channel to an axle. We then basically made and added a sort of basket on top of the c-channel and rubber bands to add tension to make the catapult launch when it reached the slipped part of the gear.
If you do decide to use this method make sure you add some slack to the rubber bands (We tied 2 bands together) because otherwise if your robot gets bumped into or jolts then the string may fall out. We had trouble with this in our last competition but tying 2 rubber bands together helped release a bit of the tension causing the “basket” to be less at a vertical angle which kept the string from falling out.
I know a middle school team 703A or 703B they have an endgame in progress and an endgame
That doesn’t really help me at all understand endgame expansions any better.
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Well, the most I can give right now is the common “meta” of a string launcher (covers tons of tiles.)
There are some cool endgame ideas without pneumatics, though. Don’t rule those out.
you mean like unrolling a mile of chain? 
I love the solutions my MS teams come up with! They do solve problems and are also entertaining!
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As a middle schooler myself, my team seriously considered rolling out a 1-motor “mini bot” as an endgame early in the year, but we promptly realized that that would be VERY hard to do.
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Saw one of those - it kept rolling off the main robot … fun idea
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Endgame is mostly just trying to cover the most tiles at once.
Pneumatics remove the need for a motor, since you can hold something with it in the expanded motion.
Imagine a catapult right? Something holds it down, while springs try to push it up. Imagine using the end of a pneumatic to hold it up. When the pneumatic is pulled back, then, wow, nothing holds the end of the catapult, and knowing the tension, it’ll get pulled back up and launch a projectile. Now, imagine that projectile is tied to a string. The string will go with it, and then we cover more tiles.
Please reference this post with regard to your terminology…
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Hello, our highschool team, (all freshmen with little to no robotics experience) came up with a rather funny endgame of launching a traction wheel out of out flywheel, just holding on to it with a pneumatic, simple, yet it won us the innovate award!
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I was thinking about that for our bot, too! I think that it is funny someone actually did that, that is cool!