Flying robots again

@evidedRigina asked about upper limits for out of bounds and it seem flying robots are in the designers minds again!

The only way to go completely out of bounds is to leave the floor. So flying/levitating or climbing/falling over the wall come to mind on how to achieve that. I have seen one robot fall over but the base was still in the confines of the field boundary haplessly laying there.

I sure would like to see a flying Vex robot though! (with just Vex parts)

Previous game Q&A had flying robots would be under intense scrutiny for safety. I imagine it will be the same again this year, but I am sure Karthik will answer you with the latest ruling.

https://vexforum.com/t/answered-more-flying-requests/17555/1

https://vexforum.com/t/answered-flying-robot/26401/1

If some fans cold be made out of Lexan, it wold be fairly simple…:slight_smile:

It wold basically be a Quadcopter…

kind of like this.
hmxe0847.jpg

If I remember correctly, someone did some calculations and determined that the motors don’t have enough force to lift their own weight in any configuration. That isn’t even taking into account the rest of the robot.

What if you geared it super high and had 2 motors per wing

It would have to be super light, and even then it might not work.

The motor modules do not have enough power in any configuration to lift themselves.

MOAR GEARING isn’t the best answer in this situation.

So here’s the thing you have to consider (not only for this, but any application). “Power” is fixed for us electrically. Watts = Volts x Amps. Watts is the unit of power. Volts is set by the battery, Amps is limited by the motor (and cortex) PTC. Therefore watts (the power available to us for the system) never changes.

As the Illuminati points out:
Changing the gearing of a motor affects Torque: we trade lower speeds for higher torque, higher speed for lower torque.

In vex U it was ruled we can 3-d print our own motor casing and remove all the internal gearing. With a much lighter casing it could be possible, but someone would have to do the math to confirm this.
Even if its possible though, I don’t think its practical for Starstruck. You would waste a lot of time flying around, picking up and dropping the stars. You would essentially have a far-zone dumper with a 1 star capacity. Plus if your opponent is catapulting stars over, its just a matter of time before one of them accidentally hits you.

I just want to build a vex drone, seems like a very fun project

Yes it does.

Yep, if one(or more) star(s) hits a “vex drone” it would be the end of the mach for it.

That would be so satisfying to hit with a star

Yep, it wold!

Seems like a pretty frustrating project, considering its impossible :stuck_out_tongue:

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A think that a walking robot wold be much more piratical.

Pneumatic spider/grasshopper-bot :stuck_out_tongue:

Walking Robot
It’s called a Theo Jansen Linkage. Really simple walking robot driven simply by a shaft down the middle.