Take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCEzyoxd8M I know of a college team that is working something similar, but I love this!
Seconded! Is there a plan to add more attachments to carry rings? Can those grabber prongs also descore? Is that a rack and pinion on your supports for high goal scoring? The coolest mechanism I’ve seen this year so far, thank you so much for posing it! Keep the cool stuff coming guys, awesome work.
before our school did vex full time we had a skills Canada robot to play connect four, with tennis balls. we were only allowed to hold 1 tennis ball at a time so this technique was quite nice.
although i do love this idea, there is one problem, and its obvious. it can only pick up a single tube at a time which means knocking over a stack first. i am sure anyone to overcome this obstacle with a similar design, will end up with a
design award, probably an excellence award depending on how well it works.
I was thinking about whether or not we’d see a “ring processor” robot instead of all arm robots this year… This isn’t what I had in mind but I hope it gets people thinking.
Forget the mechanism, I love the music!
Hey guys… this is Travis , team capt. for vex vrc team 861… this is our design for this year in a very unpolished way… some changes since the video are as follows…
- Claws are now made of Lexan
- Claws now pick up two rings each now so a full four with one spool up
- Lexan gear covers to prevent wire damage
- Tail made to guide and hold rings
New videos will be posted check them out and comment on youtube and here on this forum post.
PS Any teams in or around Virginia we are attending the Halfax Qualifier in South Boston, VA however they still need teams to sign up.. great way to start a beginner season. Any teams that need help with the bot feel free to find us at this event or on here...:)OH!!! It just clicked with me where/who you guys are! We were “ACME Robots” (apologies to ACME… didn’t search before naming the team… :o) at the Lynchburg tournament last year. Awesome design you got - can’t wait to scrimmage you in December.
Andrew
Good to hear from you guys again, hows your design coming this year and yes me to we cant wait
one team at my school is working on a project similar to that but its much easier to control
This video is kinda old compared to what we have modified in the last 2 weeks changed the gearing on the chain… do you have a video of yours in action?
were not releasing any pictures or video or any of our robots. but all i have to say is that we have 3 amazing robots with some killer autonomous’s and some really smart programmers and young engineers working round the clock on them. im working on mine as we speak
Interesting, i dont mean to come off as rude, and i understand why you would withhold that stuff, but its an rookie move to not be open to ideas and criticism. A big part of vex is coopratition meaning help the others so you may beat the best. i have no doubt in my mind you guys have a good robot, but at the same time it leads me to speculate yours just talking to talk.
Cool. I’ve seen a similar design from team 2453. I really like the idea, and your is insanely fast. Can it do high goals?
we enjoy helping others out with their problems and give ideas but we dont want to give our ideas out until after our first tournament. after that people will have already seen our robots so it won’t matter as much. its mainly my team who doesnt want to give our ideas out because ours can hold entire stacks of rings and hang fast and score effctively
the “killer autonomous’”, how many points do they approximately score in the 20 secs? (or 1 min skills challenge)
and for the publishing your robot:
do what i plan to do in the next few days
post pics or vids, but censor out the part of the robot that you think teams should “figure out on their own” 
that would give them the general idea, but not leak your full design to anyone just yet
thanks for your support guys, the rack and pinions on the front and rear raise the claws up 5 to 6 inches to score high goals. the claw designs are changing today so we can hook 2 at a time and score 4 to 6 in about 9 sec.
Thank you all so much for your support and interest - both have been immensely encouraging to our team!
I’ve really enjoyed watching this design grow and evolve - these guys have refused to settle and continue to refine their design daily. As of yesterday, they were able to collect and score four rings on a post in 34 seconds.
Which competitions are you going to? I’m looking forward to seeing your design once you release it, and would love to see your robot in action. I understand your reluctance to post your design before competing, especially after what happened last year.
We like to post ours because we get great feedback (you have no idea how excited our team got when we found this thread) and we enjoy sharing our work with others. If someone else is inspired by our design, finds ways to improve it, makes it their own, and stomps us in a competition, I’d still call that success. On the other hand, wholesale copying would just hack me off, so I like Murdomeek’s idea about shrouding or censoring key systems.
While it’s every team’s decision to keep secrets and in Vex there is plenty of reason to do so, I do feel it’s worth noting that no matter how many times you say your robots are “amazing” with “great” autonomous modes and driving, no one is going to believe you or take particular note of you unless you do post pictures and video. You can either keep a tight lid on your design or you can generate hype for your team; rarely if ever can you do both.
we have a competition in Los Angeles this weekend. wee in California so we go to many LA and San Diego tournaments
Just a reminder, there is a new “Inspire” award this year which goes to a team which shares its robot, design process, and engineering with the VRC public. At the Worlds in particular, teams will be voting for their choice for Inspire, and this voting will be a key component in selecting the team that receives the award. From Appendix E of the* Round Up* manual: