Hi all. I was just checking around to see if there was a design that worked for a passive(no motor, no pneumatics) clamp that can grab a mobo goal from the front or back of a bot. I do not really know how it would work, but with rubber bands, and tension, you can do wonders. Thank you for reading!
This depends on if you actually want to release it or not. If not, norcal’s passive goal lift might be something to look at.
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Does that have a motor? I can not tell. It does not need to release. It is just for the end of the match so I can get 3 mobile goals on the tippy thing
It uses one motor to grab both mobile goals. The first one passively locks into the base of the goal and is pulled in when the motor moves forward, where it disengages and the lift is free to pick up others.
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Ok. I will talk to my builder
You can make a passive clamp that is a one time grab, and you can’t let go once you grab it, but on the other hand, you can’t let go. If it is something you are interested in, I can give you the details.
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I would 100% be interested in this.
There are two main ways I know of to do this (there are probably more out there, and I think we’d all appreciate hearing them if you have one to share).
For the first one, you have a sort of bi-stable / over-centered clamp that starts up at the beginning of the match. It has a good number of rubber bands. It is built as such so that when you hit the goal, it pushes the over-centered or bi-stable clamp so that it tries to go to the other position, consequently latching on to the goal. I’m pretty sure that with the proper technique, you could get a pretty solid clamp on the goal.
The second one is like a gate-latch. If you’ve ever seen those gates where you lift the latch to open it, and then just push it closed to shut it because it latches shut, that’s how it works. It’s a little hard to describe the actual concept, so here’s a VEX IQ mock-up.
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Gotcha. Ok. Thank you very much. I will talk to my builder to see if he can design something like this. thanks again!