I am asssuming that these cubes are going to be smooth to the touch, so that means fast robots, their is no point in having tourque in my drive due to not being able to defend or “Fight” other robots. I am very lost on what I will do with my arm mechanisms, i understand what gearing i am going to use but, I am not quite sure on my arm design.
well the cubes are 1.12 pounds so a little torque will be needed if you are planning to crash the tower of cubes.
elevator all the way!!!
scissor lift what what
H drive would work well for this game. A linear lift is what I want to use but I don’t know if the new plastic on the linear kit is able to hold up to constant stress or just try to use the old kit.
An H-Drive is never a good idea. It’s an waste of motors. Holonomic is the way to go, either a 4 motor or an 8 motor. Don’t do Mecanum, don’t do Plus, don’t do anything other than an X-Drive for strafing. Everything else is inefficient.
If you look at how kinetic energy is calculated speed is more important in crashing the tower of cubes.
Im thinking a 4 or 5 stage chain lift to get up high. Paired with a heavy high tourque base for crashiung into the stack. maybe a gear shift.
Really? It seems to me this year high speed would be advantageous. Last year you had to fight for goals where scoring objects outnumbered scoring opportunities so a torque base would make sense because it came down to who controlled the goals. This year with the number of goals and the fact that most of the actual scoring will be done in a protected area it seems it’s going to come down to who gets more done in the limited period of time. If you’re heavy and high torque you simply won’t be able to score as much.
Remember… Kinetic energy is affected by the square of velocity.
As said, speed is a lot more advantageous. That and maneuverability.
There’s no shortage of scoring opportunities and scoring objects really.
I’m going to play with a double reverse 4 bar or 6 bar or 4/6 bar but I’m leaning more towards a scissor lift or a multi-stage elevator lift.
Hey, I hate to crash the party, but “crashing the stack” (which I assume means running into the Skyrise) is illegal. SG9b prevents any opposing team from contacting the opposing alliance’s SR sections or base.
As for design ideas, I think that high speed would be more important than high torque so that you can collect and score cubes more quickly than you opponent. I think that a 4 or 6 motor 1:2 base should do the trick.
Arm design will be an interesting challenge this year. I think scissor lift is the way to go, but elevator lifts would work pretty well also.
Intakes will probably be 3-side rollers or spear-like contraptions. I will need to do some testing to find out which one is really the better choice. Also, I think we will be seeing different intakes for cubes and SR sections this year. I imagine that a claw would work pretty well for the SR sections, but perhaps there is another option I don’t know about.
They’re talking about the pyramid of cubes.
I think claw is the only way to go for the skyrise sections.
I believe they’re talking about crashing into the center cubes to either make them easier to pick up since they’re on the ground or to disrupt the opponent’s autonomous.
Ah, I guess I misunderstood the term. Thank you for correcting me. 
I agree with the idea that a linear lift is essential. I personally favor scissors lifts because of their elegancy, and my personal experience with and research done on it. But right now i am battling inside my head… linear or scissors? Scissors look more flexible whe it comes to elastic assist, but both have the weight that cannot be undermined. I am planning to try a linear chain powered scissors lift, since our team captain is completely frustrated by our failed experiments with linear plastic slide kits.
so everyone is thinking of lift designs and such but what about a collection device? What is its capacity? What is a recommended capacity?
It seems like most teams are leaning towards a top-and-side roller intake or a needle intake for SR. It also seems like the general consensus among teams is that a claw is best for the SR sections.
I predict most teams that don’t want to expand their collector will have a capacity of one or two cubes. If they wanted to fit three cubes in a flat, non-expanded collector, their collector would need to end at around 16’ above ground, what creates a very sharp angle on the intake.
For good teams, though, I think three or more in capacity is definitely recommended. Efficiency will be key in this challenge, as everything can be scored, and therefore the first one to score all of their pieces can play defense and win the game.
I’m so pumped for this new game! It’ll be interesting to see how teams deal with all these new challenges.
Best of luck this season
Let me just respond with some experience, and advice:
Linear lifts are HARD to build. I started one at the beginning of Toss-Up, and shifted towards bar-lifts for a reason. The linear lift I built was 5 tiers, and used the most minimal amount of metal possible. After countless hours of tweaking the slides, cutting, greasing, and maintenance, I finally got it to work. The linear lift was quite a feat. It went up, and down so gracefully, however, there is a reason I switched. For starters the lift by itself was WAY too heavy, even with aluminum. The lift with motors, and electronics weighed about 7lbs. It took four motors to lift, and even at that, you couldn’t get it to lift unless you had a ratio of about 7:1. It was so innefecient, and too complex. The chain started to break, and was always constantly having to be built again over, and over. My advice would not be to discourage you to build it, but just to consider every possible option.
Just remember that 1103, was only 3 tiers, and went through lots of modifications, and improvements, and lets not forget that it used 6 MOTORS to lift it.
Just advice, take it as you will…
How efficient do you think roller intakes( top rollers, maybe side rollers of some kind using flaps) would be for these cubes considering their weight? Also wouldn’t it also be a lot harder to intake another cube when you already have one or two in the tray? Considering that to put the next one in, you’d need to push the others up too.
Those were 6 269 motors lifting it and there are plenty of ways to cut back on weight. The speed may be slow but compared to a well built scissor lift, a linear lift blows it out of the water.