I developed a very simple mechanical system to execute the activation of the VEXcode VR pen in some simulations on the VEXIQ Physical Robotics platform.
I did some tests and everything went smoothly, well I hope you can have fun with this file it is available to download at:
I had a similar thought to this. What I noticed was that 2 parallel 1x beams right next to each other have enough wiggle room to make a really small parallel lift with enough travel to raise and lower a pen. This allows you to mount something pretty centrally on a modified version of the old Clawbot chassis. It;s far from ideal, because the pen still isn’t anywhere near central so would really need a specially designed chassis so that the Brain isn’t in the way of the centre of the robot.
The little vertical 1x beam in this video would be replaced with a 3D printed pen holder:
Nice!! I’ve poked at Vex to sell this, but now with this, I can jus build my own. Nice designs
I definitely think it is worth coming up with a design that has a chassis the same rough dimensions as the standard Clawbot one, but with the Brain flipped up 90 degrees so the pen can be right in the centre of rotation.
First of all, I would like to thank you for sharing your idea here in the group !!
The developed part is functional and can be applied, how are you thinking about adding the motor for the system activation?
@Lucas_Lira Thanks for sharing!
A couple observations from my own experiments:
Like @calvc01 said, you want the pen to be “right in the centre of rotation” or as very close as possible. Otherwise driving the vehicle to draw any kind of corner is very difficult (or impossible). Example: Drawing a square with your robot design will be disappointing.
It is best not to directly lower the pen onto the surface. If the surface has a bump the pen may snag the robot; or, a dip in the surface would cause the pen to loose contact. Instead, consider engaging/disengaging downward pressure on the pen (like with a rubber band) so the pen can drag along the surface.
I have a new version for the robot to develop the tracing with the pen!
I have done 6 hours of testing with this robot and everything seems to be working.
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