With the recent success of pushbots, I had the idea of a tether-pushbot. Although I will ont be building this idea, it would be good to have a thread dedicated to the problems attributed with them – mainly cable management. What’s the best way to keep wires from being tangled with an alliance partner, or the bot itself?
I like the way 8086A did it back in skyrise.
I have an idea… ZIP TIES!!! 
In all seriousness though, the way 8086A did it is actually really good in my opinion and probably at least one of the best ways to do it.
I would highly recommend not making both of the tetherbots push bots. Push bots are dependent on the other alliance member to also score, but making one of your tethers a fork or claw would negate that flaw.
I would be annoyed by this. ALBA (in college) uses tether bots, but only because they are only allowed one robot in college, so they have basically 2 robots on the field. With basically 3 and a long cord running everywhere, I would be miffed to be your alliance partner.
He said he wasn’t going to build it. He just asked about cable management with a tetherbot.
Lol imagine if both tetherbots are catapults. That will mean that those robots can shoot anywhere on the field at any time, plus there is two of them.
@CATaclysm Delta_II how well do you think it would work with two dumper bots? 6 motors each, 2 motor drive 4 motor lift?
Pretty well if they’re small. Probably under 6 pounds each.
I’m gonna design a switching drivetrain for this concept, brb
How would you not get tangled up in your partner? We get in their way and vice versa enough as it is…
each team does stuff in their half of the field, and they don’t cross into each others halfs
I created a two speed drivetrain for the pusher (4 motors) now to design the dumper (6 motors)
EDIT: just realized this is not really necissary
About the dumper, you could have two very small robots on top of each other, but in order to make sure that the dumper can pick up both cubes and stars, it would fold over both the side and top of the robot, and lock strait when the match starts. I have a crude drawing of this. A two motor drive/four motor lift should also work well, assuming external gearing and rubber bands
Black is the base
red is a sixbar (or any other bar to raise the tray/dumper)
green is the wheels
blue is the tray
I was thinking something a bit more like this… (Im pressed on time so no drawing)
Two dumpers have towers that are spaced differently. Flip one dumper compleltly upside down and the towers/lifts can slot together. The intakes could still fold upwards, similar to normal bots now. Just getting them unfolded… that would be a challenge in and of itself XD Maybe some foam padding?
After one falls (because the two robots won’t be connected that tightly, the other could push it upright.