My robot has 6 torque motors dedicated to the lift and it can lift itself up easy, however it falls back down and can’t hold itelf up. So any suggestions on how I can fix this problem.
Maybe some rubber bands to resist against the motors’ sliding down? It’ll work harder going down, but if you can do it, then that would be a good idea.
it really depends on what type/style of lift you have, If it is a vertical one like ours you could probably use 1 less motor and use that motor to lock it, If you have a rotation style lift probably do what AppleDavisJeans said.
There are a few ways to accomplish this.
I’m assuming by what you said that you’re hanging by pulling yourself up radially.
1.
Make it so that your center of balance passes over the hanging pole at the apex of your hang.
2.
If you can make the arm that you’re hanging with go past it’s normal range of motion at the apex of your hang, then you can attach some kind of latching mechanism that doesn’t clip into place until it reaches a certain point.
3.
Do what @AppleDavidJeans said above, although that could hinder the normal scoring abilities assuming that’s the same arm that you’re using for scoring (6 motors and all).
4.
Use a motorized or pneumatically actuated lock as demonstrated in this video by @Stanley Shi(2R).
5.
The only passive way to make a passive hanging lock that anyone seems to have figured out used a locking linkage. I think that it would be fairly hard to implement on a larger robot.
What if you use a ratchet and pawl? That would solve the issue of falling down in any position, and yet still having the ability to lift furthermore.
I think that the title has a typo in it…
thanks, fixed it
We didn’t do that… you really, REALLY don’t wanna know how ours locked
Yes we do 
I agree, we veeeery much so want to know. 
Now I’m curious. Tell Us!
If you have three gears meshed together they won’t spin, I’ve seen some locks like that. You can also have locks similar to a gate latch. There are many more mechanisms than just having motors or rubber bands.
OK… It has been long enough… our secret is… i accidentally broke a motor by manually testing height while building it… it broke one of the internal gears in such a way that when we cut power the motor completely stopped and couldn’t be moved … this caused a few racks to break… But it worked… this was defiantly the sketchiest thing i have ever done in vex and i can still hear the PiLons (5225A) laughing at me… now the motor is so broken it doesn’t run… Dont try to replicate this lol… but… maybe soon we will reveal the less sketchy gen 2…
That’s not sketchy! THIS IS INNOVATION
LUCK*